


Resurrection

by MediaevalMuse



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Pushing Daisies
Genre: Angst, Daddy Issues, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:37:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 69,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1228417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MediaevalMuse/pseuds/MediaevalMuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Pushing Daisies/Agents of SHIELD crossover. Centipede is trying to find new methods of resurrection. Ned the Pie Maker can bring the dead back to life. How will our favorite agents handle the situation? (Many thanks to Lilyhandmaiden, my excellent beta reader!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Agents of SHIELD doesn't appear until the second "real" chapter, so just hang in there!

At this very moment, in the town of Northrush, young Ned is 9 years, 45 weeks, 3 days, 10 hours and 22 minutes old. Halloween had come and gone, as most Halloweens do, and now the boys of Longborough Boarding School were preparing to depart for home in honor of the national holiday of Thanksgiving.

Only, young Ned was not going anywhere. In fact, he no longer had a home to return to after his mother’s death. Since coming to Longborough, Ned had discovered his father had moved on without him, and now, with a new house, a new wife, and two new sons, Ned’s father had a new family with which he could celebrate the yearly consumption of large, wattled birds.

So, alone in his boarding school, except for his faithful companion, a dog named Digby, young Ned retreated to the kitchen, where he proceeded to bake himself a pumpkin pie. The smell of the crispy, brown sugar crust and the blend of cinnamon and nutmeg atop the pureed orange squash filling reminded him of his mother, and as the boy who would later become the Pie Maker reminisced about her, he could not stop himself from thinking about his father’s new family.

When it was time to reduce the heat in the oven from 425 to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 35 to 40 minutes, young Ned passed the time by writing letters: first, he wrote to his mother, telling her about the pies he was making and how he was sorry he accidentally killed her. You see, young Ned had a unique gift: with one touch, he could bring a dead thing back to life. But touch the dead thing again… dead forever. Keep a dead thing alive for more than a minute and something else had to die. Such had happened to his mother when a blood vessel in her brain burst.

But when young Ned ran out of things to say to his mother, he began a new letter to himself in which he detailed how lonely he felt and how much he wished his older self would remember the pain inflicted upon him by his father.

From that moment on, young Ned wrote his older self a letter every year on Thanksgiving in which he begged himself not to forget the anger he felt eating away at his heart just as he ate away at the pumpkin pie.


	2. The Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ned, Chuck, and Emerson are contracted for a case, but something about it doesn't seem right.

Now, in the town of Coeur d’Coeurs, the Pie Maker and the girl called Chuck are staring at the open-mouthed faces of Aunts Lily and Vivian, one nervously grasping a cool bottle of champagne so tightly in his hand that his knuckles are turning white and the other holding a large bouquet of daisies under her perfect pink chin.

“Lily… Vivian…” Chuck said, her voice soft with emotion. Ned saw the daisies trembling ever so slightly out of the corner of his eye. Time had stopped for all of them, and the aunts gazed at their niece (and daughter) with a dumb silence that filled the space between them, holding them on either side of the threshold of their bright and eclectic home.

The facts were these: Charlotte “Chuck” Charles was precisely 28 years, 24 weeks, three days, 11 hours and 51 minutes old at the time of her death. The events that led to her death were startling: after visiting the Boutique Travel Travel Boutique, Chuck accepted an offer from Deedee Duffield for a free Tahitian cruise in exchange for picking up a suitcase containing two plaster monkeys of purely sentimental value. Unbeknownst to Chuck, the monkeys were made of solid gold, and as she was aboard the cruise ship, retrieving ice for her ginger ale, she was killed by the Shiny Shoes Killer with a plastic bag. Duffield hired Emerson Cod to investigate, fearing her death would be the next one, and the private investigator enlisted the help of the Pie Maker. Upon recognizing the face of his childhood sweetheart, Ned decided to keep Chuck alive past the allotted minute, accidentally killing the funeral director, Lawrence Schatz, in Chuck’s place. Chuck had been hiding with Ned ever since… that is, until recently.

The silence became more and more uncomfortable for the Pie Maker the longer it endured. He had expected joyful exclamations, hugging, smiles, tears even, but none of those things happened and his champagne was losing its coolness. He shifted his feet and tucked an anxious hand in the pocket of his jacket, prompting the girl named Chuck to break the silence.

“I’m alive,” Chuck offered. And with those simple words, Lily and Vivian rushed forward and threw their arms around her, crushing the daisies and causing a light rain of white petals to flutter delicately onto the front porch.

“We thought you were dead!” Vivian exclaimed.

“We buried you!” Lily added.

“I was dead,” Chuck replied, looking sideways to the Pie Maker, “but… Ned saved me.” There was no good way to explain her resurrection, and as the aunts pulled away, still clasping each of Chuck’s arms in their hands, the three of them felt an overwhelming surge of familial bondedness. None of them wanted to be separated from the others another minute. The daisies were wilted now.

“Saved you?” Lily asked, her eyepatch glaring at the Pie Maker with distrust.

“It’s a funny story, actually,” Chuck continued. She looked at Ned, the kind and gentle baker, standing awkwardly on the steps of her childhood home holding a bottle of champagne with sweaty palms and knitted eyebrows, fully prepared to divulge his secret to her beloved aunts – one of whom was her mother. She bit her lip. Making herself known to the world, exposing her existence after the world saw her murder plastered all over the news, made Ned vulnerable, and it was only a matter of time before someone would come knocking at the Pie Hole’s door (or rather, simply walk in - it was an established place of business, after all) with questions. While Chuck longed to tell her aunt and mother the truth after lying to them for so long, Ned’s lopsided smile and newfound confidence in their relationship seemed more precious to her than ever.

“I wasn’t really dead I mean I was but only for a couple minutes I was in a plastic-and-salt-water-induced coma and Ned found me before they could bury me and with all the fuss on the news I didn’t know how to tell you guys.” The words spilled out of Chuck’s mouth so fast she wasn’t sure if she even knew what she was saying. Ned simply looked at her, his mouth hanging open in surprise at her cover-up story.

“And this dumbass didn’t tell us,” Lily spat, gesturing towards the Pie Maker with a jerky motion of her head.

“It’s not Ned’s fault,” Chuck quickly interjected. “I asked him not to. You already had a gorgeous funeral for me and I didn’t want to spoil it.”

“Well what matters is you’re home and not buried alive in a dark grave where no one can hear your cries of desperation.”

And so, the aunts – one of whom was Chuck’s mother – took her inside the house, where they enjoyed a generous round of warm champagne while listening to the fantastic recounting of Chuck’s life after death.

It would be one week, 3 days, 8 hours, and 56 minutes before Lily and Vivian would allow Chuck out of their sight, preferring to stow her on a roll-out bed in her old room, which was currently serving as a cheese locker. The familiarity of her beloved childhood haven sent tingles through her fingers and toes and as she lay beneath the stilton and sariette de banon, basking in the blissful happiness of contentment.

But her absence would not go unnoticed by the Pie Maker, whose duty to the Pie Hole and the cold hard stares from Lily and Vivian kept them apart for the entirety of the one week, 3 days, 8 hours, and 56 minutes Chuck was in Coeur d’Couers. Despite his complete acceptance that Chuck should want to spend time in bubbly reunion with her aunts – one of whom was her mother – and temporary relief that he no longer needed to sleep with his arm inside a sweaty plastic mitten, Ned found himself eagerly awaiting Chuck’s return and the harmony that came to the Pie Hole whenever she was present.

After one week, 3 days, 8 hours, and 56 minutes, Chuck did assure Lily and Vivian that she was back for good, and she returned to the Pie Hole to be greeted by Ned’s shy smile and warm, chocolate fudge colored eyes. The Pie Maker wiped his flour-covered hands on his apron and leaned forward on the counter, folding his arms in front of him and watching the girl named Chuck waltz forward in her green and yellow sundress, her curls tickling the tops of her shoulders.

“Welcome back,” Ned said, his eyebrows knitting in bashful happiness. Chuck leaned on the opposite side of the counter so that her arms were dangerously close to Ned’s.

“It’s good to be back,” she replied.

“How did you convince Lily and Vivian to let you out of the house?”

“Oh, I just told them that I have a life here filled with espionage and intrigue and a sweet pie-making boyfriend who can wake the dead with the touch of his magic finger.”

“Really?”

“No, not entirely.”

“Good, because the more I think about the term ‘magic finger,’ the more I feel like Roald Dahl instead of Superman.”

“And that’s a bad thing? He wrote a story about a giant peach.”

“He also wrote one about a girl who created chaos and wreaked permanent damage with the touch of her magic finger. Didn’t you read that one? Maybe between learning Japanese and ancient Hebrew?”

“You don’t create chaos or damage,” Chuck offered, wishing she could reach out and touch the Pie Maker. “Thanks to you, I’m with my family again.”

“You’re not with them now. They’re going to Europe. And your dad’s gone missing.”

“The Darling Mermaid Darlings have postponed their European tour due to a ‘family emergency,’” she declared. “Family means sticking around when your daughter and niece come back from the dead. Dad’s high-tailed it out of here and… well… you’ve always been here for me. So maybe you’re my family, too.”

Ever since Chuck had tricked him into resurrecting her father, who had been dead for 20 years and had launched harsh reproaches for endangering Chuck’s life with Ned’s proximity, Ned had felt nervous about word spreading about his ability. A dead man walking around with a bandaged face and dirty tan overcoat might attract attention. But though he was happy to see Chuck happy, and he knew she wasn’t sorry that her father lived, he could sense that Chuck felt betrayed, even when she said nothing. Chuck’s father left them to see the world he had always dreamed of travelling, and Ned knew exactly how she felt.

He felt a lump rise in his throat as he was stunned into silence at her reply. Chuck smiled and edged herself off the counter. “I’m going to go find some plastic wrap,” she whispered.

While the Pie Maker and the girl named Chuck spent the day in joyful companionship, exactly 12.625 miles to the west, a murder was being committed by the most disreputable of fellows. Dr. Sherry Frost, a blond and exceptionally bright young psychologist, was 37 years, 3 weeks, 9 hours, and 41 minutes old when she attempted to flee from her assailant, but without success. In the blink of an eye, the murderer snapped her neck, leaving her crumpled on the floor of her office at the Quire County Psychological Institute. Security cameras picked up no distinguishable features of the intruder save for a strange orange glow emanating through the black cloth of his left sleeve.

***

Emerson Cod had no knowledge of this crime until three peroxide-blond women wearing white ermine coats appeared in his office one morning extending him wadfulls of cash, and where there was cash and a gruesome murder, there was Emerson Cod.

“Sherry was our sister,” they said as one. They sat in chairs before Emerson’s grand oak desk, their legs delicately crossed in exactly the same fashion and white stilettos extending from beneath their furry habiliments.

“The police aren’t doing a thing about it,” said one.

“They’re calling it an accident,” said another.

“They won’t let us see the body or take it for burial,” said the last.

“Please help us,” they chimed together.

Emerson found himself unsettled by their pale blue lipstick, their too-white white gloves, their Stepford-like mannerisms, but the promise of a hefty reward was too great a motivation to accept their case.

The facts were these: Dr. Sherry Frost was the older sister of the Frost triplets and only family member with whom they still communicated. Before taking a job as a therapist at the psychological center in Quire County, Sherry had been a researcher at a genetics lab in the United Kingdom called The World. Five years ago, The World was shut down and subsequently abandoned after allegations of unethical testing, though no records of the facility became available for public consumption. The Frost triplets were convinced that the lab and Sherry’s past were deeply entangled with her current state: that of being dead.

And so, Emerson Cod collected his trusted friend the Pie Maker, followed by the girl named Chuck, and headed straight for the morgue. Being accustomed to their arrangement with the coroner for unfettered access to the corpses, they were unprepared for what happened next.

“I don’t have the body,” the coroner said, hands folded over a stack of reports.

“What do you mean you don’t have the body?” Emerson asked in disbelief. “You’re the coroner. And the coroner for the next county over.”

“I know what I am,” the coroner replied, his voice brimming with annoyance. “And I’m telling you I don’t have it.”

Ned shifted his weight from foot to foot anxiously and folded his arms tightly over his chest. A surreptitious hand covered his lips in a not-so-inconspicuous attempt to hide his speech. “No body,” he whispered to Emerson. “No body means I can’t touch it. Can’t touch it means we can’t ask who killed her.”

“I know,” Emerson spat.

“By any chance can you tell us where the body went?” Chuck broke in. The coroner eyed her suspiciously.

“I could, but I have a payment to make on my car insurance,” he said. Chuck nudged Emerson with her elbow.

“You don’t have a car,” Emerson said. “You walk everywhere.” When the coroner remained silent, Emerson rolled his eyes and reached into his jacket, pulling out a $50 bill, which he promptly slipped into the man’s fingers.

“Black suits took it,” the coroner told them.

“Black suits?” Chuck asked.

“You know, FBI-types. Federal investigators.”

“Are you suggesting the murderer is a serial killer?” Ned ventured. The coroner looked at him with such displeasure that the pie maker wished he had said nothing at all.

“Maybe,” the coroner replied. “Or just a killer from out of town.”

Emerson sulked all the way to the car.

“Now that Lily and Vivian know I’m alive, do you think I can walk into the morgue without a coat and sunglasses?” Chuck asked. Her excitement at the prospect caused Ned to beam with his lopsided smile, letting Chuck’s freedom fuel the warm tingling sensation that spread from his heart throughout his entire body. Seeing her so alive and so happy was like a drug to him, and allowing her mood to inspire his was the closest he felt to her without the plastic wrap. It was almost like touching her.

“Well, while you’re focused on Undead Fashion, my job just got a hell of a lot harder,” Emerson countered. Chuck placed a reassuring hand on his forearm as they walked.

“It’s ok, we’ll help you. Remember Dickerson’s? I can be your Alive-Again Avenger and Ned will be the Caped Crusader with the magic finger!”

“Well Magic Finger ain’t got much use without any bodies to go un-deadifying.”

“Thanks,” Ned piped in.

“Well, why don’t we go find some?” Chuck posited. Emerson and Ned both turned to look at her, their brows knitted in confusion.

“I don’t know if you heard right,” Emerson began, “but the body was taken by federal investigators. We have no idea where they might be.”

“Maybe,” Chuck replied. “But we can at least start at the crime scene. Maybe then we’ll get an idea of where they went.”

“Then what?”

Chuck smiled deviously. “Espionage.”

***  
The entire building of the Quire County Psychological Institute was surrounded in bright yellow tape, a sort of flimsy highlighter paddock that tricked the public into keeping their distance with a roll of plastic. Men and women in black suits patrolled the area as sheepdogs herding their white-coated scientists in and out of the building while gesturing with nods and subtle hand signals at the rubble being prodded by metal pincers. One especially menacing-looking woman in heels and thick-rimmed spectacles eyed the scene with pointed hostility, reminding Ned of a vulture scouring for dead body parts. Emerson Cod knew immediately that they would never get inside, but Chuck retained her buoyant optimism.

“We’ll just wait until they go away,” Chuck suggested, desperately wishing she could investigate with the rest of them. This murder was a puzzle, the five-star Sudoku of the criminal world in the Papen County area, and solving it would ensure a surge of confidence and entertainment in her otherwise normal world. But Ned was not so sure.

“When will that be?” Ned asked. “When did the murder happen? They shouldn’t still be here after a few days.”

“Yesterday,” Emerson replied, frustrated that he hadn’t thought of the conflict sooner. Ned and Chuck looked at him from where they stood on either side of his broad shoulders.

“Yesterday?” they exclaimed together.

“Why did the client hire you after just one day?” Ned said.

“Why are there a bunch of lab coats here sifting through piles of rubble if the death was an accident?” Emerson wondered, mostly to himself. Ned and Chuck turned to scrutinize the scene.

They were silent for a very long time. So long, in fact, that the crowd around them became uncomfortable and had to move three feet to the left. The Pie Maker rocked back and forth on his heels, letting the motion of his body calm the tumultuous babble of thoughts that sloshed around in his head. Meanwhile, the girl named Chuck toyed with the idea of simply ducking under the yellow tape and asking one of the investigators outright what they were doing.

“We have to give this one up,” Ned said at last. Chuck shot him an angry look.

“No way!” she protested. “This is the most exciting murder since Blanche Ramora was eaten by Bubba the shark.”

“Chuck, these are _federal_ investigators, meaning this is a _federal_ case. We’ve never done anything this big before.”

“Exactly!”

“Think about it… up until now, we’ve dealt with cases involving petty murders for petty reasons. Money, jealousy, revenge, the last slice of pizza-“

“You’re saying we can’t solve it?”

“No, I’m-“

“Why are you so scared of this one? Come on, Ned. It’s just another family that is suffering a terrible loss and it’s our job to help them.”

“Yes, but this one risks the exposure of my magic finger to the United States government.” 

Chuck looked sadly at Ned, feeling a weight sink into the pit of her stomach. The feeling she felt at Lily and Vivian’s house, on the day she revealed to them that she was indeed alive, returned with an almost sickening vengeance – it was a drive to protect the Pie Maker and keep his secret as far away from the authorities as possible. Vividly, the words he spoke to her about his dreams, his own special form of confiding in her, played over in her mind’s ear. _“Ever since I was a kid, I'd have this dream where somebody would find out what I could do,” he had said. “It starts off with lots of ice cream and balloons, and ends in a small white room where little bits are cut out of me until there's nothing left to cut.”_ She shivered at the thought of the people in white lab coats currently wandering around before her taking an icy cold scalpel to Ned’s skin. What made him work? Could they take it away from him? She hoped they would never find out.

“All right, you two, knock it off,” Emerson interjected at last. He sighed and looked at Chuck. “Maybe’s he’s got a point. Until now, we’ve been able to keep his superpowers under wraps.”

“You’re quitting?” Chuck asked, incredulous.

“No, there’s too much cash in store,” Emerson continued. “All I’m saying is maybe we should go solo on this one.”

“Solo meaning the two of us?”

“Duo, then.”

Chuck turned to Ned. “Does that make you more comfortable?”

Ned shrugged. “I’ll still be worried about you, but yes, if that means anything.”

Satisfied, Chuck turned to Emerson. “How are we going to get in there?” he asked.

Chuck smiled, not unlike a mischievous child. “You can use your PI creds. Just walk right up and ask them some questions. Like ‘so, I see you too are investigators. Can you share your dead body with me?’” Emerson eyed her in disbelief.

“Like that’ll work,” he scoffed. Chuck looked to Ned, who seemed to know just what she was thinking, for he lifted the yellow tape clear above Emerson’s head just as Chuck pushed him onto the crime scene. Emerson let out a surprised yelp as he stumbled over a pile of rocks, nearly falling on his face.

“Excuse me,” came a female voice, “this is a restricted area.” Emerson panicked as he saw the menacing woman in heels making a bee line for him, her shoes making ominous _click-click-clicks_ on the rough ground.

“Yes, ma’am,” Emerson muttered.

“I would appreciate it if you removed yourself from the scene, behind the yellow tape.” She stood a whole head shorter than Emerson and wore no identification.

“No problem.” But as he turned, he saw Chuck’s authoritative glare and crossed arms. He would much rather suffer Dead Girl’s disappointment than the wrath of the woman in the thick-rimmed spectacles, but at the thought of all the money that awaited him at the end of this case, Emerson plucked up his courage and decided to give Chuck’s plan a shot.

“Actually,” he began, reaching for his P.I. identification, “my name is Emerson Cod, Private Investigator.”

“Who you are doesn’t matter,” the woman replied, her voice flat and stern. “You are trespassing onto the site of a government investigation.”

“I’ve been hired by Dr. Frost’s sisters concerning the mysterious nature of her death.”

“Mr. Cod,” the woman began, “I’m sure that in their grief, Dr. Frost’s family is seeking closure, but as I told them yesterday, Dr. Frost’s death was an accident.”

“If it was an accident, then how come you have a bunch of lab coats out here picking up rocks?”

“That is none of your concern. Now, I advise you to remove yourself from the scene before I take you into custody.”

Emerson eyed her coolly, but the woman’s face did not change.

“One more thing,” he said. “Dr. Frost’s body is not with our coroner. I’m sure, her death being an accident, you wouldn’t mind granting me access to your morgue? Closure, you see.”

“Mr. Cod, I advise you to leave this matter alone. Permission denied.” With those words, she sharply spun on her heel and marched off towards the building, motioning to a nearby man in a black suit. “Make sure he leaves,” she said. The man in the suit nodded and started making his way towards Emerson, conspicuously placing a hand on the holster of his gun. Emerson Cod held up his hands in front of him.

“Don’t worry, I’m leaving,” he said, making his way back towards Ned and Chuck on the other side of the yellow tape. Chuck was crestfallen, and with heavy hearts, the three made their way back to the car.

They were unaware that they were being followed.


	3. Interlude 1

A man in a dark suit and sunglasses was walking briskly away from the crime scene. “How long do I need to keep after him?” he asked, careful to avoid calling attention to the earpiece he wore.

“Not long,” a female voice replied through his tech. “Just until we can bug his office. The computers will do all the work from there.”

“Can’t you just hack into his personal records? You’re good at that.”

“I did when he was talking to Agent Hand. That’s Emerson Cod. According to police reports, he’s unusually good at solving murders, especially ones where the police have given up due to lack of evidence.”

“Your skills never fail to impress. You’re on your way to becoming Level 1.”

“Shut up.”

“Maybe he’s just that good.”

“Maybe. But we’re just keeping tabs on him. He’s probably harmless, but it’s best to be sure.”

“He’s going into a pie shop.”

“Great! Can you bring me back a slice?”

The man rolled his eyes, and the woman laughed because she knew.


	4. Custody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An occurrence at the Pie Hole brings Ned face to face with some unusual people.

No matter how many trips they took to the Quire County Psychological Institute, Emerson and Chuck could not find a way to break into the building. The people in black and white remained on the scene for four days, and even at night, armed guards circled the facility with an alertness uncharacteristic of a small-town security staff. Despite Chuck’s pleading, Emerson refused to risk bodily harm of this magnitude, even for the Frost sisters’ cash. He had been shot before, an unpleasant experience to say the least, but the rifles clutched in the hands of the guards looked like they would cause more pain than he could imagine. 

After four days, the suits vanished suddenly, leaving neither indication that they had been there nor any information pertaining to their whereabouts. Frustrating, to say the least, especially since Emerson Cod still had no idea where the body was kept. But the institute was finally reopened, thereby allowing the PI and his associate to enter the building without resorting to criminal activity; however, to Emerson and Chuck’s dismay, the feds had thoroughly cleaned up after themselves. Dr. Frost’s office had been remodeled and all her files confiscated, even the walls had looked like they’d been freshly sheet-rocked. They sulked about it over apple-cranberry pie.

“Look, maybe you should let it go,” Ned offered, sitting in a booth opposite Chuck and Emerson. “Unless you find the body, there’s nothing you can do.”

Emerson poked at his pie. The new girl, a pretty waitress with long black hair named Daisy Butterton, fluttered from table to table in the background, pouring coffee for patrons and doing her best to appear as if she wasn’t eavesdropping on her new boss and his “business meeting,” as she thought was happening.

“Look, I’m not thrilled about it either, but we may have hit our limit with this one,” Ned continued after some silence.

“We?” Chuck asked. “You backed out of this one. And we’re a lot better than you give us credit for.”

Immediately she regretted her words, and Ned’s expressive face showed signs of hurt.

“I only meant-“

“I know what you meant. It’s ok. I’m sorry.”

Emerson put down his fork and began to gather up his hat and coat. “I’m going back to my office,” he announced. “I’ll call the Frosts and let them know I’m returning their money.” He looked as if he were about to cry.

“Emerson, no!” Chuck interjected, gripping the table in the attempt to prevent him from pushing her out of the booth ahead of him. But the girl named Chuck, being petite and shorter than the private investigator, was ultimately overpowered, and as Emerson Cod left the Pie Hole, she slumped back in the booth with a disappointed air.

“Are you staying at your aunts’ tonight?” Ned asked.

“Maybe,” Chuck replied.

“You’ll get the next one.”

Though she knew it was irrational, Chuck couldn’t help but blame Ned for their failure. Maybe it was what she perceived to be his discouragement, his failing to support her when Emerson admitted their defeat, maybe even his inability to help them despite her full knowledge that there was no body he could resurrect. She looked at him guiltily, and sighed.

“I’m going up with my bees for a while,” she said at last. Ned nodded, always understanding but always concerned.

While the girl named Chuck tended to her beehives, Emerson Cod made the most difficult phone call he’d ever had to make to the Frost sisters. However, upon receiving a call immediately afterwards informing him that his daughter, Penny, would be visiting that weekend, Emerson began to feel lighter and more optimistic.

It would be three weeks, 2 days, 16 hours, and 19 minutes before the biggest encounter of any of their lives would begin.

***

During those three weeks, 2 days, 16 hours, and 19 minutes following the dismissal of the Frost case, Daisy Butterton quit her job after one night; Ned hired another waitress named Wendla; and Emerson Cod, the girl named Chuck, and the Pie Maker solved three murders and made over forty thousand dollars.

The first murder involved a woman named Ellie Appleton who had been found dead on the sidewalk, apparently the result of a fall from a 30 story high-rise apartment complex. The police ruled it a suicide. Her body was flat and very pancake-shaped, and upon waking her, all Emerson and Chuck could garner from their one minute of precious time was that she was planning to leave her husband, Ronald, for her lover, Gregory, and that she had been indeed been pushed out the window. She did not see her attacker, but upon investigation, it was found that her husband had not, in fact, pushed her out of jealousy, as was first suspected. Instead, Ellie’s brother, Carlyle, murdered her in order to keep his executive job, and five-figure paycheck, at Ronald’s luxury furniture warehouse, which he would have undoubtedly lost if Ellie was found to be unfaithful.

The second murder involved a man who was first stabbed, then drowned, and then, upon being wakened, spewed water all over Ned’s shoes. There was nothing remarkable about this case except that Jimmy Gibson, the victim, was killed by his coworker, Hamilton, from the Mighty Big Burger joint after learning that he kept a hoard of plastic fairy figurines in his basement, estimated to be worth $50,000 altogether.

The third murder involved a lumberjack named Mallory Penman, who still bore an axe buried deeply in his skull that wobbled as he talked. At first, Emerson Cod and his associated believed the wife to be the killer; Mr. Penman had an extremely high life insurance policy, as the danger of falling trees was constant in his line of work. However, Mrs. Penman turned out to be a gentle, loving spouse who donated all of the insurance money to a charity that provided wooden shoes and clothing for poor people (her husband was Dutch, after all). In the end, it turned out that Mr. Penman was killed by his best friend, a rival lumberjack, who was competing to win the honor of recognition from his company for chopping down the most trees.

It was after the closing of this last case, a celebration with slices of peach-berry pie, and the final lock-up for the night that someone triggered a bomb in the empty Pie Hole.

Thankfully, Emerson had left earlier, no doubt wanting to escape the imminent gooey love fest that would follow the Pie Maker and Dead Girl home. But no peaceful night would greet the couple, as Ned and Chuck were barely far enough away to escape serious injury when the explosion pushed them forward onto their faces. Ned felt the rough asphalt of the street scrape his cheek, leaving a burning sensation that rivaled the heat emanating from the ruins of the restaurant behind him. The ringing in his ears and blurriness of his vision prevented him from making out the form of Chuck’s body lying in the road beside him; so, in shock at what had just transpired, all he could think to do was to reach out for her, despite the danger of touching, to see if she was alive. But as soon as he began to move, his head spun and he felt nauseous, causing his heart to throb in anxious panic.

The lateness of the hour was no obstacle for the resulting reaction from the town, and instead of running for cover, a small crowd began to gather around the fallen bodies of Ned and Chuck. Even more people began to congregate at a safe distance from the Pie Hole, staring with morbid curiosity at the wreckage and billowing black smoke that emerged from its insides. Lights in all the apartments down the street snapped on, and husbands and wives in pajamas leaned out their windows, trying to catch a glimpse of the commotion. They either didn’t understand the danger or didn’t care for their own safety, for as soon as the debris settled, they were attracted like flies to the corpse of the former bakery. The bombing was a spectacle, an entertainment to interrupt the hum-drum cycle of their uneventful suburban lives. Ned hated that the spectacle was centered around the death of his pie shop, the place he felt most at home.

Ned felt a hand on his shoulder and a muffled voice asked him, “Hey, son, are you okay?” The Pie Maker pushed himself to his knees, feeling hot blood trickle down his cheek and drip from his jaw. Small bits of glass dropped from his hair and shoulders and his tattered black trench coat smelled of smoke and grime.

“Chuck?” he called, ignoring the do-gooder, but his voice sounded distant. His throat was dry, and every breath he took felt like swallowing sawdust. He looked around, but the blurriness in his eyes prevented him from seeing her. Panicked, he called again, screaming as loud as he could. “Chuck!”

There was no reply, but he felt another hand on his forearm. He knew it was her by the way it carefully avoided the skin of his wrist.

“I’m alright!” he heard her say, though softly. The ringing in his ears was drowning her out, but he clung to that small snippet of her voice as a sailor drowning in a tempestuous ocean. He needed to return to her, and her speech motivated him to reclaim his senses, to push out the confusion of his eyes and ears so he could be close to her once more.

As his vision began to clear, Ned was suddenly aware of yet another hand on him, gripping him tight about the bicep and roughly pulling him to his feet. The motion turned Ned’s stomach and he moaned slightly in pain, perceiving the world around him to slosh from side to side. People were stepping back, giving him a wide berth… finally something rational in this disaster. A man with a deep voice was yelling, “Get back! Police!” _How did they get here so fast?_ Ned wondered. But he did not dwell on the thought long, for he saw Chuck, still on the ground, her eyes gazing up at him in fright. No policeman helped her, but a small group of passersby crouched beside her, holding her hand and pulling her back as Ned was dragged away from the crowd. He saw Chuck reach out for him, and he wanted to reach back and grab her hand, or at least her sleeve, but the pull on his arm was too strong.

“Stop,” he said, his voice weak, but the man did not listen to him. Ned tried to wrench himself free, but the fingers closed about him like irons.

“You need to come with me,” the man replied, monotone and purpose-driven. He was taller than the Pie Maker and seemed one thousand times stronger, but Ned dismissed it to the confusion of his senses, his head still swimming in pain and disorientation. A helmet covered the man’s head, like a large, black skull, and his torso was encircled by what appeared to be a military vest, also black and giving him the proportions of a giant. He tried to make Ned walk, but his steps faltered, motivating the man to sling one of Ned’s arms over his shoulder and half-carry him as a soldier would. His arm still remained in the deathlike grip, however, and Ned felt like a ragdoll as the man dragged him past the Pie Hole’s remains, resolute but always avoiding Ned’s eyes as he kicked away at the debris strewn all about them. The glass crunched under his shoes.

“What about Chuck?” Ned implored, his voice straining from the dust that choked him. The man did not reply, he only hauled the Pie Maker onwards. In his helplessness, Ned took a moment to glance at the wreckage: glass and bits of plaster and wood lay everywhere. A chair there, a booth half burnt and thrown across the sidewalk. Some tiles joining the glass under his feet. The P and L from his neon sign lay smashed and gutted, their wires sizzling and giving the impression of a dissected frog, its entrails laying about on the street. The horror of the spectacle drained the blood from Ned’s face, and now, the realization that he was in the custody of what seemed like a government agent sent chills down his spine. They would find out what he could do, they would cut him open and see what made him work… and he would never see Chuck again.

“Let me go,” Ned said. The man did not reply but instead gripped him harder. Ned’s arm felt numb from the loss of circulation as he continued to be led away and down towards a darkened alley a block from the Pie Hole. But the further they travelled, the more Ned suspected that the man was not a government agent. This was too far from the blast site. The cops would have parked closer to him. Where was he going? 

As he shuffled along the road, Ned could make out the shape of a sleek black car parked on the side of the road past the alley, its body cast in shadow and two silhouetted figures sitting in the driver and passenger seats. Inside the alley was a large SUV wedged between the two buildings, lights off and engine idling. It looked like a muscle-y body builder trying to fit into clothes too small for him. At Ned’s approach, the passenger door of the car opened, and the lithe figure of a woman in a flower dress slinked forth, her black curly hair bouncing as she walked towards him.

“If it isn’t the Pie Maker,” she said, her voice friendly but without warmth. The man in black pushed Ned forward so that he was within arm’s reach of the woman. His ankles felt weak and Ned feared he would collapse in the road in front of her.

“You’re not government, are you?” he asked. The woman smiled.

“My name is Raina,” she replied. “I come as a friend.” Ned smiled nervously.

“I think your definition of friend is slightly different than mine,” he said.

“I understand how you might feel that way… but I believe you have a gift.”

Ned’s heart leapt to his throat. She knew. His pulse began to race, and he felt sweat break out on his forehead and on upper lip.

“Don’t be alarmed,” Raina continued. “No one will harm you. I have a proposition for you, Ned. Your gift is one that can be… most beneficial.” She closed the distance between them slowly, her eyes fixed on Ned and delighting over the blood and grit that clung to his face. “I’ve been watching you, Ned. I see how you use your power to help people, to give them closure.” She leaned in closer. “You use this gift to help us…” Even closer. “And my team will help you.”

“Why did you blow up my restaurant?”

Raina suddenly pulled away and her face became stern. “A little… motivation on our part.”

“You could have killed Chuck.”

A smile returned to Raina’s face, devious and enticing. “Chuck… Charlotte Charles. You love her, don’t you? Well, if you accept our offer, we can give you something you’ve wanted for a long time now… Wouldn’t you like to touch your girlfriend? Hold her in your arms?”

Ned swallowed nervously. “What are you talking about?”

“We can alter that gift of yours so you can touch her without killing her.”

Ned looked at her in disbelief. “That’s impossible.”

“We have the resources.”

Ned fell silent. More than anything, he wanted to be able to kiss Chuck without the plastic wrap, to hold her as they drifted off to sleep, to hold hands as they walked down the street after a day of baking and crime solving. How many nights had he imagined what that would be like? Her delicate fingers entwining with his own, her rosy cheek lying upon his chest, her soft lips brushing his? He wanted that more than anything, but was he willing to put his fate in the hands of this woman, who destroyed his home?

“I’d rather not,” he said at last. “I like my life as it is. It’s comfortable. Organized.”

“We can take you by force, you know,” Raina said, slowly inching back towards the car. “It’s easier if you just come with us. Accept my offer.”

Force it was, then.

“No.”

Raina smiled and turned her back to him, heading to the car. “Take him,” she ordered.

The man in black seized Ned one again by the arm, and though he knew he could not overcome his enormous strength, Ned nevertheless attempted to fight. It would be fitting, he decided, to at least say he put forth the effort if he ever got out alive.

But as the man began to drag him towards the SUV, Ned heard a high-pitched _whizzzz,_ causing him to turn around in alarm. The man copied him, and before he could find the source of the noise, he felt a slight breeze against his cheek and his eyes caught a sudden flash of blue rushing past him, embedding itself into the fleshy neck of his captor. The man released Ned with a grunt, and as he crumpled to the ground, three more super-sized agents leapt from the SUV, guns at the ready. Ned fell backwards, landing against the brick wall of one of the buildings. His back slammed against the hard surface, knocking the air from his lungs so that he sunk down to sit on the asphalt in pain. He heard the squeal of tires as the black car, Raina inside, peeled away from the scene.

As he gasped for air, two figures emerged from the dark and swiftly knocked the weapons from their opponents’ hands with a dull thud. The third man was felled by another blue bullet, striking him in the hand and knocking him unconscious in a matter of milliseconds. Ned ducked as an explosion of brick burst to his left: one of the men in black had aimed a punch for his adversary, and when he missed, the force took a chunk out of the building. Bits of clay rained down on Ned’s hair, mingling with the glass and debris leftover from the Pie Hole’s demise.

One of the newcomers was a man, as tall as the others, skilled in combat, but obviously not as strong. Ned watched as he skillfully landed blows on his opponent’s chest and face, but without much effect. One punch from the man in black caught him on the jaw, sending him reeling backwards, but he did not let the attack hinder him, despite the blood trickling from his lip. After what felt like hours, the man drew from his belt an auto-injector filled with the same strange, blue glow as the bullets. He slammed the device through his assailant’s sleeve, rendering the man unconscious.

The second figure was a woman, and she moved faster than the man. As her dark hair flew with the momentum of her spins and leaps, Ned watched in awe as she avoided every blow her opponent threw at her, ducking and bending in a way that reminded the Pie Maker of a large cat. She landed a perfect kick to her attacker’s knee, and he seemed to falter, if just for a moment. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the woman drew another auto-injector from her belt and perfectly buried it into his neck, leaving him collapsed on the ground next to his partners.

Winded from the fight, the man and woman turned to look at Ned, their chests heaving beneath their military vests and eyes piercing through the darkness as two animals on the hunt. Ned held his hands up in front of him, as if that would keep them at a distance. Who were they? What did they want with him? Did they know what he could do?

The figures said nothing, but waited, backs erect and poised, chins held parallel to the ground in a position of power, making Ned feel small and uncomfortable. Before long, he heard the crunch of gravel beneath tires as a second black SUV pulled up behind them, emanating bright beams from its headlights that momentarily blinded Ned, and he had to use his hands to block them from view. He felt cornered, threatened, and after seeing the abilities of these two people before him, he was not sure of his chances of escape. Ned peered between his fingers, looking past the figures at the SUV, which bore the emblem of a large, white eagle plastered proudly to the side of the vehicle. He suddenly felt like a mouse.

He heard the driver’s door open and someone emerged, his or her feet making a soft pat on the ground. Neither the man nor the woman looked away, but instead they stepped back to allow the driver to walk in front of them, slowly making his way towards the place where Ned sat against the brick wall. Ned saw that it was a man, not as tall as the one in the military vest, but still standing with a posture of one accustomed to situations such as this one. He was dressed in an authoritative black suit with a tie, just like those he had seen before at the Psychological Institute. The government had found him at last.

The man in the suit stood in front of him, placed between the two beams shooting out from the SUV so that they seemed to Ned like golden eagle wings. When he spoke, his voice was even and stern, yet Ned could detect compassion and concern, strange for a government official.

“My name is Agent Coulson,” the man said. “I’m with S.H.I.E.L.D. I understand you’ve been through a great ordeal. We’d like to take you into protective custody, so if you’ll just accompany Agents Ward and May, here, we’ll make sure those men won’t be back to harm you.”


	5. Interlude 2

The woman in the flower dress picked up the cell phone that vibrated on her desk. Her hands trembled so violently that she almost dropped it. “Hello? Oh, sir, it’s you… No, we didn’t get the… I see… Yes… It will be done.” She hung up.


	6. The Bus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ned gets to know the team and Skye is suspicious.

Ned didn’t know when he passed out. It must have been somewhere in transit, because the last thing he remembered was sinking into the stiff leather seats of the black SUV. Now he awakened to find himself in a large room on a makeshift bed composed of a cot on the floor barely long enough to hold him. Another cot lay on the other side of the room, some 5 feet away, but it was empty and the blankets were balled up at the foot of the mattress. Looking up, Ned saw the walls were a disparaging black and indented with hexagonal patterns, which gave him an eerie sensation of being in a holding cell. But it was warm, clean, and strangely pressurized, like the inside of an airplane. _At least if they were going to dissect me, they’d put me in a lab,_ he thought. His face was itchy, and when he raised his hand to scratch it, he felt a soft, gauzy bandage had been taped to his cheek.

When he tried to rise, he felt his muscles burn in protest, making his movements stiff and laborious. With clenched teeth, he lifted his black t-shirt to discover a mosaic of bruises and scrapes on his chest and abdomen, a patchwork of purple, blue, black, and maroon – his battle scars from the bombing of the Pie Hole.

 _Oh god, Chuck._ He was here, wherever here was, but where was she? In spite of the pain, Ned pushed himself to his feet and threw himself at the door, pushing it open and clumsily stumbling through its threshold. He almost ran into a wall, but he put out a hand to steady himself, using it as a guide down a short hallway to a well-lit room filled with a soft chatter.

“You’re awake!”

Chuck bounced over to him, looking out of place in her dark pants and plum-colored shirt. Ned could not recall seeing her in anything but bright colors, and the dark ensemble made him feel out of place and far from home despite her familiar smile. To even further remind him of the event that brought them here, Ned noticed a bandage taped to the right side of Chuck’s neck and several neat stitches making a delicate curve over her left eyebrow. She stopped just in front of him, and they both clasped their hands behind their backs, their gesture of love without touching.

“Are you alright?” Ned asked, wishing he could embrace her. Chuck smiled.

“Better than you.”

They gazed at each other for a few moments until Ned was suddenly aware of two faces peering at him from behind Chuck.

“Hello,” said one, a woman with wavy brown hair. Her voice was laden with an English accent, one that Ned could not place, but nevertheless, he thought it comforting.

“Hi,” Ned ventured. He briefly took in his surroundings, noticing the plush white couch and sleek wood paneling about the room. There were no windows, which made Ned uneasy, but there was a bar to his left. A woman with long black hair sat on one of the chairs.

“Daisy?” he asked in disbelief. The new waitress looked up at him and waved sheepishly.

“Skye,” she said. “Sorry about that. I’ll just… I’ll be downstairs.” She slipped out of the chair and made her way from the lounge.

“She’s not a waitress?”

“Well, not presently. She’s a hacktivist, really,” said the English woman. “Sorry, we had to make sure you were, well, what you are.”

“Yeah, once we figured it out we brought you here,” the Scotsman added. “Sorry about your pie shop, though. Skye says your pies were awesome.”

“Where are we, exactly?” Ned asked. The woman seemed to smile wider, if that were possible.

“You’re on the bus!” she exclaimed.

“The what?”

“It’s an airborne mobile command station.” The voice was from the other stranger, a man with curly brown hair and pale skin. His accent was Scottish, and for a moment, Ned thought he must have been whisked away to the U.K. “But we call it the bus.”

“We’re on a plane?” Ned wondered. That would explain the pressure. But before he could elicit a response, yet another voice interrupted them.

“Fitzsimmons,” it said, “will you give us a moment?” The voice belonged to Coulson, who emerged from what Ned thought was another hallway, still wearing his official-looking suit. “Would you come with me please?” he asked, nodding to Ned. Chuck nodded.

“You go ahead,” she assured him. “I’ve already had the talk.”

“The talk?”

“Come with me, please,” Coulson repeated. Ned nodded and began to follow the agent through the hallway. Only it was not a hallway, but a small patch of room that skirted around a strange-looking glass enclosure, humming with electronics and blue tech fixtures. A spiral staircase stood before them, blocking the way to yet another lounge decorated with the same white furniture and wood paneling as before. This lounge was lined with sliding doors, which Ned guessed must lead to crew quarters, and an open passageway that offered him a glimpse into what looked like a kitchen. As Coulson climbed the staircase, Ned had the awful feeling that he was in over his head. His leg muscles burned as he climbed after the agent.

Coulson ushered Ned into an office, which was like any office except for the high-tech screen facing the desk and the strange-looking odds and ends displayed proudly on shelves about the room. He saw books with identical bindings, binders four inches thick, and a cabinet no doubt containing files upon files of classified information. The agent sat in a large executive chair behind a wooden desk, framed by a large blueprint of what Ned only thought could be the “bus” behind him.

“Have a seat,” Coulson commanded, picking up a thick file folder. Ned nervously lowered himself into a chair, clasping his hands together between his knees.

“Are you with the government?” he asked. Coulson looked up at him.

“Not exactly. We’re with S.H.I.E.L.D. Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division.”

“Quite a mouthful.”

“Hence the useful acronym.”

“What is it you do?”

“We’re a team of highly specialized agents accustomed to dealing with… unusual threats.”

Ned felt his heart racing. Unusual threats. _They must know._ He felt his palms beginning to sweat.

“What are you going to do to me?” His voice stammered.

“Nothing.”

Ned’s eyebrows knitted in confusion. How could the government want to do nothing with him? He was a… what did they call them? “Unusual threat.” Coulson dropped the file on his desk and it made a soft _slap_ as papers containing cameo photos of Ned and Chuck and Emerson at the Quire County Psychological Institute slipped from their paperclips.

“We’ve been monitoring your associate, Emerson Cod, for a few weeks,” Coulson explained. “At first we thought he might have been a hindrance to our operations in Quire Country, but after the Mallory Penman case…” He smiled. “Let’s just say we now understand what makes him so successful.”

Ned shifted in his seat. “If you don’t want me for my ability, why am I still here?” Coulson walked from behind his desk and leaned against it a few inches from Ned’s legs.

“The organization that blew up your restaurant is the same one responsible for the death of Dr. Frost. We’d like offer you protection, but to do that, we’d have to put you on our index, our database of persons with supernatural and superhuman abilities that we view as non-threats to national security.”

Ned let out a breath he had not been aware he was holding. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants.

“You don’t think I’m a threat.” It was more of a statement that a question. Coulson smiled again.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think waking the dead for the span of a minute is a hazard to the country.”

Ned couldn’t believe that a governmental agency would not want to cut him open, to experiment on him and attempt to harness his power. He was in such disbelief that he began thinking of excuses. “What about that proximity… thing?”

“From what we can tell, you’ve been a responsible user of your ability. Placing you on our index will assign you an officer to check in with you once in a while to ensure you continue to do so.”

“But I can kill people!” he protested.

“We’ve had individuals with pyrokinetic abilities on our index,” Coulson assured him. “Fire can undoubtedly be a safety hazard, but as long as that power is kept secret…” Coulson trailed off. “We’ll keep you with us until we’ve determined the threat to you is eliminated.” Ned began to breathe more deeply, trying to process all the information that was flying at him all at once.

“Those people… they know what I can do.”

“Centipede,” Coulson corrected him.

“Like the bug?”

“Yes, but deadlier.”

“What do they want me for, exactly?”

“We’re not sure, but we’re working on it.” Ned thought Coulson might be lying, that he knew exactly why those people wanted him, but he decided not to press the issue. The agent might have a gun. 

“Is Chuck on your index too?” he asked. “I brought her back to life. She is… unusual.”

Coulson shook his head. “Being alive again is certainly interesting, but as far as we can tell, she hasn’t acquired any special powers.” He leaned forward a bit. “Plus, I don’t think giving S.H.I.E.L.D. records of her existence would be entirely in her best interest.”

“Aren’t you S.H.E.I.L.D. too?”

“Yes, but my team is a bit different. We keep our own secrets.”

“Am I a team secret?”

“For the time being. But eventually, the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. will find out that I have you in my custody. They’ll want to transfer you to a safehouse of some kind until the threat is eliminated.” Ned must have looked worried, because Coulson continued. “Don’t worry. I had one of my team members lay a false trail for you out of the country. She’s good. They won’t discover the fake for days. Until then, we’ll figure out what to do.”

Ned paused, taking in all that the agent had laid before him. Chuck would most assuredly be upset to be kept from her aunts again, and no doubt Emerson would be looking for him. But on the other hand, these people, Centipede, had wanted to use him so badly that they planted a bomb in his restaurant. On the other other hand, did he really want the government, or branch of government, to be monitoring him for the rest of his life? Hadn’t he tried his whole life to be normal, to lead an ordinary life in order to draw attention away from himself? The more Ned thought about it, the more he felt the gravity of the situation. His Pie Hole was gone. S.H.I.E.L.D. knew about his ability and would keep an eye on him whether he consented or not. A secret organization was searching for him, trying to take him by force to use his talent for who knows what. _Well,_ he decided. _Might as well. It would be safer for everyone if I was kept away._

“Alright,” he said. “Put me on your index.”

***

While Ned was conferencing with Agent Coulson, Chuck was talking about bees to agents Fitz and Simmons, the latter about the fascinating biochemical processes of honey-making and the former about the latest microchips designed to monitor hive conditions. Chuck found herself transfixed by their intelligence and the way they finished each other’s thoughts, talking in synchronic harmony with scientific gibberish that confused and engaged her at the same time.

“Can you believe they have to shave the bees in order to plant the microchip?” Fitz asked. Chuck giggled.

“They have to, Fitz,” Simmons said. “The younger ones have more hair.”

“How do you shave a bee, though?”

“I’m sure you can come up with something to help with that.”

“Of course I can, but the idea is just so-“

“Necessary, though I admit a little silly.”

“Hey guys,” Chuck interrupted, her legs folded beneath her on the couch. “I was wondering… can I ask you a favor?” Fitz and Simmons looked at her giddily.

“Of course,” Simmons replied, compassion in her voice. Since her arrival on the bus, Chuck had felt a sisterly affection from Simmons, as if she were constantly looking for ways to make her adjustment easier while keeping her feeling safe at the same time. Chuck appreciated the effort, but now she wanted to use that connection to her advantage.

“You know about Ned’s ability, right?”

“Yeah,” Fitz replied. “Coulson told us before we picked you up.”

“I would _love_ to look at his genetic code and see what makes him do that,” Simmons added, looking to Fitz to share her excitement.

“Would that involve some sort of cutting?” Chuck asked. For a brief moment, she thought she saw Fitz shiver, but Simmons only shook her head.

“Nah,” Fitz said for her.

“Just some tissue samples,” Simmons added. “Maybe a hair or two. Your whole genetic code is contained in every one of your cells, you know.”

“Simmons never misses an opportunity to research supernatural genetics.”

“They’re so different than ordinary human genetics! They’re brilliant!”

“One time, she found an antidote to an alien virus using the natural resistance contained in a tissue sample from a Chitauri helmet.”

“And he developed the method to deliver it.”

“The delivery’s still a little sloppy. I’m still working to make it more smooth in extreme conditions… like jumping out of airplanes.”

“Fitz!”

“Guys,” Chuck interrupted once more. “Did Coulson tell you about me as well?”

“Are you referring to the fact that you’re an undead crime fighter?” Fitz asked.

“The term is ‘alive again,’” Simmons added. “It’s more respectful.” Chuck smiled at her politeness.

The facts were these: In the months following her resurrection, the girl named Chuck became increasingly lonely and restless. Hating to keep her life a secret from her aunts, she entrusted a strand of hair to scientist and olfactory expert Oscar Vibenius in hopes that he would discover her resurrection through its analysis. But Vibenius returned the hair, and Chuck later decided that she was perfectly happy keeping her secret so long as she and Ned were comfortable with one another.

Now, however, she found herself increasingly curious about her resurrection. What did it mean for her body? Her father, after all, was reanimated but still retained the look of 20 years’ decomposition. Would he always look that way? Would Chuck’s body heal, these cuts and bruises she sustained from the bombing, or was her body trapped in some sort of biological stasis? Would the touch-a-dead-thing-again rule ever wear off? Could she ever kiss Ned without plastic wrap?

“Anyways,” she continued. “I was wondering. Could you run tests on… me?”

Fitz and Simmons fell silent and exchanged knowing looks between them. After a few moments, they seemed to burst from excitement.

“We wanted to ask you earlier,” Simmons said. “But we didn’t want to pressure you or make you think we only liked you for your scientific possibilities.”

“She just wants to take a look at your cell structure,” Fitz added.

“Good!” Chuck replied. “Only… can you keep this a secret? I don’t want Ned to know.”

Simmons’s shoulders fell and her face looked positively upset. “Noooooo,” she groaned. Fitz just smiled.

“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “We won’t tell anyone.”

***  
Agent Grant Ward and the hacktivist Skye were training in the cargo hold, preferring movement over the awkward reunion with her temporary boss. Undercover wasn’t her strongest skill, and Skye was grateful that she only had to bus tables for the one evening. After obtaining confirmation of Ned’s abilities, she left the pie shop to tell the others, but the knowledge did nothing to prevent the bombing.

Now, Skye’s hands and wrists were tightly wrapped in tape, and Ward held a punching bag steady as she landed a few good blows at its center. She tried to concentrate on her breathing, pushing the air from her lungs as she threw her fist forward, drawing it back in as she regrouped. It was calming, really, and all of her tension seemed to flow out through her arms and into the padding of the bag.

Right now, however, Skye thought about how much she wanted to hit Ward in the face for all the special ops talk he was giving her.

“Good,” Ward said, his voice encouraging yet stern. “Remember to keep your hands up. You’re dropping them a bit.”

“My hands are up,” Skye protested.

“Not enough. A well-placed punch could catch you in the eyebrow no problem.”

“I don’t want to be blinded by my own hands, though.”

“You won’t.”

“I thought I was getting better. You actually gave me a compliment last time. A real one. With sentences.”

“You _are_ getting better. And when you get better, I push you harder.”

Skye began to throw more forceful punches, grunting as she buried her knuckles deep within the bag’s leathery skin. The force rippled up her arms and over her shoulders, and immediately she knew her form was not right, but she couldn’t stop.

“Hey,” Ward said, but Skye did not slow down. Ward reached out a hand and caught her easily by the wrist. “What’s going on?” he asked. Skye pulled back and began to unwrap the tape from her hands, her breath coming in slight pants.

“Something’s bothering me about this whole operation,” she admitted. Ward emerged from behind the punching bag, grey shirt soaked through at the neck with sweat. He crossed his arms over his broad chest.

“What?” he asked. Skye grasped a water bottle resting near her gym bag and squirted a stream of liquid into her mouth.

“It’s just,” she began after swallowing, “Centipede killed that psychologist, right? Then Coulson has us monitor that private investigator.”

“Yeah?”

“Then the sidekick of that private investigator gets his bakery blown up and Centipede tries to kidnap him.”

“Yeah, he’s got resurrection powers. They’ve been trying to find a way to resurrect their super soldiers for a while now. Remember when they took Coulson?”

Skye remembered vividly. Ever since she had joined S.H.I.E.L.D., at first with the intent of find answers about her past, she sensed Coulson had been searching for answers of his own, behind closed doors. He thought she couldn’t see, but she knew. The Battle of New York, as the world now called it, had inflicted lasting damages on their leader in the form of being killed by an Asgardian madman, resurrected by Director Fury, and kept in the dark regarding the means or reasons as to why. A thing like that, Skye thought, must leave some sort of psychological scar. Always wondering what happened. How and why you were brought back.

Skye remembered retrieving him from Centipede’s desert location, seeing him laid out moaning and bleeding on a table, begging with unseeing eyes for whoever it was to just let him die. Her heart broke for him then, and she felt an overwhelming sense of mingled joy at finding him alive and pain at hearing his desperate voice that moved her to throw herself across him, wrapping her arms about his shoulders as he repeated her name over and over again in relief. She never asked him what they did to him or what he knew, and she felt that Coulson was grateful to her for that.

“I remember.”

“They didn’t get anything out of him. They’re most likely exploring other avenues, and Ned’s an easy target. No combat training, no affiliations with any known organizations, no S.H.I.E.L.D. connections… until now, that is.”

“I guess.”

“So what’s the problem?” Ward said, cocking his head slightly to the right.

“I understand why they went after Ned,” Skye said, the words coming slowly from her lips. “But I don’t understand why they went after Frost.” Ward’s forehead wrinkled in confusion, so Skye continued. “I mean… Centipede’s going after resurrection methods, as you said, right? So why kill that psychologist?”

“Frost had connections with The World,” Ward replied, taking a step towards her. “That lab was experimenting with genetics and time manipulation. Weapons fashioned from that work could easily suit their needs.”

“But The World was closed five years ago. All their files would have been stored in government facilities in the U.K., not in the personal office of a small-town psychologist. Surely any one of Centipede’s hackers could locate the restricted files without confronting Frost at all.”

“What are you saying?”

“I think there’s more to Dr. Frost that we realize. And somehow Ned’s linked to her.”

“Good work.”

Skye and Ward looked up to see Coulson watching them from the balcony. Ward’s posture immediately straightened in the presence of his commanding officer, something Skye often teased him for. Coulson put his hands in his pants pockets but made no motion to descent the spiral staircase to the cargo hold.

“I want you two to look into the matter,” he said. “Skye, use whatever hacking skills you need to. Check all records on Dr. Frost and The World. Look into our guests as well. Keep me informed. I want to know about everything you find.”

“Yes sir,” Ward replied. Skye simply nodded.

“If you need more help,” Coulson added, “ask May.”

He turned and left them in the cargo hold.


	7. Interlude 3

The woman in the flower dress handed an electronic tablet to a man in a white coat. “The Clairvoyant tells us we’ve exhausted all our female candidates. We need to begin looking for males,” she said.

“But it doesn’t bond with males.” The man’s voice was desperate.

“No. But the next host will not be eligible for another fifteen years. We need to focus our efforts on alternate methods. We need someone with… unusual abilities.”

“Haven’t we been doing that?”

“Yes, but we haven’t tried something. We need access to SHIELD’s index.” The woman began to walk away. “Call the Ghost.”


	8. Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team plans to smuggle Ned into the Hub to gather intel from a dead agent. Chuck and Simmons do science.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize if my science is inaccurate. I'm a humanities major :)
> 
> UPDATE: I added a few things between Ned and Coulson to help the chapters I'm writing now make more sense.
> 
> UPDATE UPDATE: I added more science.

After two days, Ned and Chuck were still on the bus. No one was particularly upset by this except for Ned, who hated flying and wanted to be set firmly back on the ground. The other agents found their presence refreshing, however, and were delighted by Chuck’s bubbly personality and eagerness to make friends.

But Ned found himself to be more withdrawn despite attempts to bring him into the fold. He felt most at peace in the makeshift cabin (which he was now sure was an interrogation room); but this was not to say he avoided the others. On the contrary, he was content to sit with them, play games (most of which he was poor at), and eat sandwiches (Simmons was especially good at this particular culinary art). His only regrets were the lack of baking opportunities and the uneasy jealousy he felt whenever Chuck and Ward would be completely absorbed in conversation.

Though he did not for one second believe that Chuck would leave him for special ops, Ned wondered how soon would it be before they returned to life as normal, if Chuck realized she no longer wanted to be normal. If anything, S.H.I.E.L.D. had shown them that a bigger world existed outside Papen County. Granted, it was a world fraught with danger and conspiracy, but one not centered on the day-in day-out activities of the Pie Hole and the frivolous murders that paled in comparison with this Centipede case. This world made Ned feel more tightly wound than usual – and he didn’t like it.

But even worse, Ned worried for Chuck like he never had before. When she was solving murders and sneaking around Coeur d’Coeurs, the threat to her safety was predictable and petty: a murderer angered at his discovery, a company owner afraid she’d discover his dirty secret. Now, however, the danger was Ned himself. It was his ability that put her in danger now. The Pie Hole bombing had proven that. And now, the guilt enclosed him in an invisible dark cloud that obscured the way he saw their lives aboard the plane. Everyone was a potential target for Centipede and they were all in danger because somehow, someone had found out what he could do. Just thinking about the danger was enough to render Ned immobile – struck with such odds, he felt paralyzed with fear. How could he protect everyone from a corporation which would almost certainly use Chuck against him if it meant getting what they wanted?

This danger was unlike the one he and Chuck lived with daily: being unable to touch, yet always dancing around the possibility that they could accidently brush each other. Ever since he’d found himself aboard the plane, Ned truly saw how foolish he had been to be in such close proximity to her. He felt like one of those big, red, cartoon targets with a large X in the middle of his chest, and his power threatened to draw fire from every direction. Chuck, being so close to his heart, would surely be the first to go.

Sitting alone in his cabin after retiring early from a night of drinks and confusing card games, Ned turned these thoughts over and over again in his mind, allowing them to consume him as the weight of the guilt began to make his limbs weary. Suddenly, he heard the door slide open, and Chuck ventured into the black room to join him. Her grey sweatpants and pink shirt reminded Ned of Skye (he was sure she had borrowed her clothes from the hacker), and her appearance was so unlike what he was used to that Ned began to wonder exactly how involved they had become in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s universe. He sat on his cot with his back to the wall and legs dangling over the side.

“Hey,” Chuck said. Ned smiled a lazy smile.

“Hey.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You sure?” She sat on the cot next to him, making sure a safe distance separated her and Ned’s skin. “You seem to be more on-edge since we got here.”

“My pie shop blew up.”

“I know. I’m so sorry.”

“Insurance will cover it.”

“Yes.”

“But we’re in danger.”

“We’re safe here.”

“Maybe… And your aunts don’t know where you are.”

Chuck shrugged her shoulders. “I know. I wish I could call them and tell them not to worry, but Agent Coulson said he would take care of it. I’m not sure if he actually did anything, though. Maybe it would be safer for them if they didn’t know what was going on.”

Ned said nothing. The gravity of all that was happening to them dissipated the initial anxiety he felt only to replace it with a deep depression which made every day feel laborious.

“I’m okay,” he lied. “I’m just tired.” Chuck looked at him with sad eyes that didn’t believe him. “You go spend time with Fitz and Jemma. I’m sure Skye would like to hang out with you, too. She seems to like you.”

Chuck carefully placed a hand on Ned’s shoulder, avoiding his skin with the utmost concentration. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow?” she asked. Ned nodded, and after a light squeeze, Chuck left him alone in the makeshift bedroom.

He felt awful for pushing her away like that. Since their reunion, Ned wanted to be around Chuck all the time, soaking in her love of life and the passion for all things bright and cheerful in their small universe in Papen County. He had always shared his thoughts with her, expressed his worries and his fears; but now, all he wanted was to be alone. Against his will, he was beginning to think that alone might be better for her. For everybody.

A firm knock at the door jostled Ned from his thoughts. “Come in,” he called. He expected it to be Coulson… or even Fitzsimmons. They were always doing their best to make him feel welcome aboard their bus. But it was none of them. Instead, Agent May emerged.

“Who’s driving the bus?” Ned asked, momentarily alarmed.

“Autopilot,” May replied, her voice low and even-toned. She came to sit beside him on the cot, where Chuck had been just moments before. May said nothing, and the silence made Ned uncomfortable.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, trying his best not to sound rude. May looked up at him, unsmiling.

“I won’t let anything happen to her,” she said in all seriousness. Ned stared at her, incredulous. He had only caught fleeting glances of Agent May since arriving on the bus. How did she know what was bothering him the most?

But the “how” really didn’t matter. He felt the weight lift from his shoulders, and gratefully, Ned simply nodded.

They sat together in silence.

***

When Ned opened his eyes, Chuck was sleeping silently in the cot on the other side of the room, her breathing creating a steady rise and fall of the blankets that covered her. No light came through the door, so Ned was unaware of the time. Was it morning? Had Chuck just come in? When had he fallen asleep? With soft steps, Ned made his way out the door and into the lounge, intent on rummaging through the galley without disturbing anyone.

But he soon realized he was not the only one awake. Every S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was gathered in the command center, the room that glowed with blue-green holotables and screens. Ned flattened himself against a wall, hoping to avoid being spotted.

“What’s going to happen to his body?” he heard Skye ask.

“The lab techs are going to study it,” Coulson replied. “They want to see if they can figure out what Centipede’s been up to.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Skye continued. “Agent Andrews doesn’t fit the pattern.”

“He was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Maybe they killed him just for that. But he could have seen something that threatened them. In any case, we need access to his body. Anything we can find on him could be useful.”

“Can’t we just… ask Ned to resurrect Andrews for a minute?”

“Yeah,” Ward added, “We could ask a few questions, maybe get some valuable intel.”

“And see this ability of his in action,” said Fitz, aside.

“No,” Coulson said, his voice stern. “I don’t want to make a habit out of using our index members.”

“With all due respect,” Ward continued, “he could be a one-time opportunity to help us finally catch these guys.”

“I understand your motives,” Coulson replied, “but Andrews is being held at The Hub. Bringing Ned into that base risks his exposure to major S.H.I.E.L.D. officers.”

“If the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. knew we had him, what would they do?” Skye asked. Ned steeled himself for the reply.

“I’m not sure,” said Coulson. “But it’s safe to guess that he’d be out of our hands immediately.”

A brief silence hung over them, the air heavy with unspoken protests but nevertheless in agreement that no one wanted to see the Pie Maker under the control of commanders such as Agent Hand. Coulson turned to May. “What do you think?” he asked. May looked to him with her steely gaze.

“It’s a risk,” she simply stated. “But it’s one we should consider taking.”

Silence again.

Would this be his life now, waiting for a team of agents to decide his fate around a table of glowing electronics? No, Ned decided. If he had to risk exposure, risk himself to keep everyone else safe… if it meant stopping Centipede, he would do anything.

“I’ll do it,” he said, stepping into the command center. All agents looked up in alarm, and Simmons quickly wiped her hand across the holotable, effacing all that had been spread out before them, but not before Ned could glimpse what was on it: Pictures. A countless number of women, all of them blondes or redheads. Why would Centipede need them?

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” Coulson said, his arms folded over his chest. Ned shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets, pushing the photos from his mind.

“If it’s about Centipede, I want to help,” he said. “And if it means stopping them from getting a hold of me, and a hold of Chuck, I’ll do whatever you ask.”

Simmons and Fitz both smiled at him, and the agent called Skye punched him playfully in the shoulder. “Look at you,” she said. “Just as much of a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent as any one of us. We should be recruiting.” Ned smiled sheepishly at her, and his face flushed pink with embarrassment.

“Fine,” Coulson agreed. “But Miss Charles stays on the bus.” Ned nodded in agreement, though not without some guilt. He knew Chuck would want to come along, but he also knew there was no pushing against these agents. They would not bend easily.

“Alright,” Coulson continued, placing his hands on the holotable. “Ward, May, and I all have clearance to Andrews’ body. Ned does not.”

“I can check all of Andrews’ records, see if he has some distant relatives we don’t know about,” Skye offered, bringing a smart phone out of her pocket.

“No good,” Coulson replied. “This is The Hub we’re talking about. No outsiders allowed.”

“We could just notify Agent Hand that we’ve found Ned,” Ward suggested. “Log him into the system… easy access. Then the only problem would be-“

“Getting him out,” Coulson finished. 

Everyone fell silent as Coulson turned to face Ned directly, his eyes communicating the gravity of the plan while voicing the despairing thoughts no one else dared to convey.

“If you are logged into the system, there is no going back. S.H.I.E.L.D. will be watching you at all times. If we can’t get you out, they will be logging your movements and calling you to the lab for experiments and tissue samples. The index will not be enough for them, and you might never see Papen County again.”

Ned nodded. “Just tell me what to do.”

“It might take a day or two for us to get you to Andrews,” Coulson replied. “You’ll have to go through processing. There’s no way around that.”

“What’s in processing?” Ned asked, fearing the worst.

“Identification, records, meeting with Agent Hand or Director Fury. Possibly some photos and initial blood samples. The usual.”

Ned’s skin began to prickle with goosebumps. He was starting to feel like an acquisition at a museum… booked, studied, possibly even put on display for all of S.H.I.E.L.D. to see… how did he fall into this mess in the first place?

“Some of the scientists there might want to run tests,” Simmons said to Coulson. “Physical Examination, biomedical analysis… Who knows when you’d have access to him again?” Ned shivered as images of needles and scalpels went flashing across his mind’s eye.

“Is there any way to delay the testing?” Ward asked.

“I’m Level 8,” Coulson replied. “I can delay the exams. But Ned would have to go through the initial booking process… still a day at least.”

“Alright, once he’s gone through booking, then what?” Fitz asked, trying to move the plans along.

“He’ll be put in a holding cell until S.H.I.E.L.D. can decide what to do with him,” Coulson explained. “Once he’s there, I’ll have clearance to take him out. All Level 8 agents have access to incoming persons of interest. I’ll bring him to the morgue and then we’ll raise Andrews.”

“How will we get him out?” Ward asked. “Ned’s power is a great find, scientifically, and if Centipede wants him that badly, there’s no way Agent Hand is letting Ned walk out of there with us. They already think the bus is too insecure.”

“But we _will_ just walk,” Coulson said, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “I will have clearance as his escort on the premises. Who’s to stop me if I decide to take him out? Skye can take out the security cameras remotely, so we will already be gone by the time anyone knows what has happened. We only need a few minutes to get out.”

“And if we run into trouble?”

“Night night!” Fitz chimed in, smiling.

“Sounds too easy,” Ward replied. “Not to mention that if we were caught, we’d be in trouble with the rest of SHIELD. They might even be expecting us to pull a stunt like this.”

“We need to try it anyways. There’s no other option.”

Everyone nodded. _What a stupid plan,_ Ned thought. He didn’t want to leave his freedom and bodily integrity in the hands of agents who were just going to try to walk him out of a high-security facility. But it was the only plan they had, and he had to go with it.

“Simmons will remain on the bus with Miss Charles,” Coulson directed. “Ward and May will accompany me and Ned to the Hub. Skye, you’re on coms with Fitz.” Simmons gave him a look that betrayed her hurt, and Ned felt guilty about causing her to be left out of the mission, essentially babysitting his alive-again girlfriend.

“Oh, can’t we come along?” Simmons pleaded. “I’d love to see his resurrection powers in action.”

“We can’t risk it,” Coulson replied simply.

“We can rig up a hidden camera on your ID badges to record all of the events in the morgue,” Fitz offered. “Then we’ll have the footage anyways.”

“Fine,” Coulson acquiesced.

“What am I to tell Miss Charles if she asks what’s going on?” Simmons asked.

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” Coulson replied. “We land in two hours.”

All of the agents nodded and started to leave the command center. Ned thought he heard Simmons mutter something about secrets, but she walked away too briskly for him to be sure. He began to leave with them until Coulson’s voice stopped him.

“Not you,” he commanded. Ned felt his heart leap to his throat. Was he about to be scolded? Lectured? Cautioned? He didn’t like the idea of a government agent railing against him, tearing down his newfound confidence with words. If he spoke too much, Ned knew he would back out from fear. He couldn’t afford that. Not with all that was at stake.

“You sure you want to do this?” Coulson asked, his voice becoming softer and more compassionate. Ned relaxed.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m sure.” Coulson nodded.

“You know, it’s not just you I’m worried about.”

“Your team seemed eager to-“

“I’m not worried about them. They can handle this.” Coulson brought a snapshot of Andrews’ S.H.I.E.L.D. identification to the center of the holotable. “Agent Terry Andrews. We found his body near the Frost site.”

“Why didn’t the press hear about him?”

“We took care of that.”

 _Of course._ Ned nodded. “Oh.”

“Andrews was a good agent, but he was also very… committed to his work.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“What’s to say he won’t try to escape after you bring him back to life?”

Ned froze. He hadn’t thought of that before. If he couldn’t put the agent down after the allotted minute, who would die in his place? Andrews didn’t need to be alive again forever. He just needed to be alive again for 61 seconds.

“Oh,” Ned simply replied. Coulson wiped the files and pictures off the holotable.

“You know,” he began, “resurrection has its consequences. I’m not trying to tell you to stop using your power and I’m not saying what you’ve been doing in Papen County is wrong. All I’m saying is you should think about how it affects people.” He inclined his head to the left, and when Ned turned his gaze in the direction of Coulson’s nod, he saw Chuck emerging sleepy-eyed from the interrogation room.

Before he could say anything, Coulson left the command center, leaving Ned to muse over his words alone.

***

Agents Fitz and Simmons made themselves busy in their favorite place aboard the bus: the lab.

“I wish you were coming with us,” Fitz offered, poking at the electronics of a mini-camera that would be soon affixed to Coulson’s ID badge.

“It’s alright,” Simmons replied. Though her voice was enthusiastic, she knew Fitz would detect her disappointment. She avoided his gaze as she inspected several rounds of a glowing blue magazine for the Night Night Pistol. “I’ll just… carry on with my work. I’m sure Chuck wouldn’t mind keeping me company.”

“Down here? No offense, but when was the last time anyone just hung out here except us?”

“Well, if I tell her what I’ve found in her cells…” She snapped the magazine into place.

“Do you think she’s ready for that?” Fit asked. Simmons placed the Night Night Pistol in its case. “You’ve looked over that thing ten times.”

“I just want to be sure it will work.”

“Simmons…”

“I’m not upset because of the mission,” she snapped, finally looking at him. “It’s just… I hate keeping secrets. It’s not because I’m bad at it… it’s just… I hate lying to people.”

Fitz rose from his seat, leaving his electronics behind to stand next to Simmons by the holotable. He didn’t touch her, but she didn’t need comforting. She needed reassurance.

“It’s alright,” Fitz said. “Tell Chuck about her cells. And if you run out of things to say, you can always talk about bees again.”

***

Ned uneasily stepped across the threshold into the Hub, his heart racing nervously but also with excitement as he looked around him at the sleek architecture. The Hub was everything he imagined it would be: clean, orderly, and definitely giving off the vibe of a secret government agency. As he strode across the black tiled floor, one so shiny he could see his reflection in it, Ned wondered if he could ever become accustomed to this place. After all, he was risking much by coming here, especially so openly. Ned’s shoes made a shuffling noise as Coulson, Ward, and May flanked him on either side, making him feel like the lead goose in a flying V of migratory birds. Why they put him in front, he had no idea.

As they approached what could only be a front desk, Ned saw a small group of highly intimidating agents waiting for him, the tallest and most menacing of which was a bald man with an eye patch.

“Director Fury,” Coulson greeted the man. “Thanks for taking my call.”

“You’ve made a most interesting acquisition,” the man replied, nodding stiffly. “I almost didn’t believe you found him until I saw you walk in.” His eye patch poorly concealed what appeared to be long scratch marks crossing over his face, no doubt a heroic outcome from a battle or secret mission. But Ned could not see the scars as intimidating. Instead, they seemed humanizing and almost rendered the man vulnerable.

Fury unclasped his hands from behind his back but did not offer one in greeting. Instead, he simply stared at Ned, his one good eye seeming to be studying him with scrutiny. “You must be the Pie Maker.”

Ned feared offending him. He didn’t know whether or not he should look at the man’s eye patch. “Yes, sir,” he said, his voice trembling, more from nerves than fear. Fury smiled as if he found everything amusing.

“So you can raise people from the dead.”

“Only for a minute.”

“I hear it’s longer than that.”

“Well, if you want something else to die in its place…”

Fury chuckled. “I can see why Centipede wants you.”

Ned shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He felt as if he were being analyzed already.

“Agents Collins and Buckley will take you through processing,” Fury continued. “Afterwards, we’ll meet in my office for a little chat before sending you to the laboratory.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

“As am I. Coulson, come with me. Agents Ward and May are dismissed.”

Two agents, one a man and one a woman, stepped forward. They wore official-looking suits and no-nonsense glares. “Follow us, please,” said the woman. Ned looked to Coulson and the others, who nodded reassuringly.

“Into the breach,” Ned whispered to himself, feeling the clasp of the male agent’s fingers around his arm.

They walked through a series of glass doors, and it was only when they arrived in what appeared to be a laboratory that Ned felt truly alone and unprotected. No needles lay on the tables, no knives or beakers or electrodes. At first, relief washed over him like a cool spring rain, refreshing yet not overwhelming enough to dull his senses. Despite the lack of poking and prodding instruments, Ned noticed the peculiarity of the space. The lab was simply… empty. No files. No other equipment. The holotable was switched off and the screens around them blank. Nothing looked like it had been in use recently. _Strange,_ Ned thought.

The female agent gestured to a chair next to the holotable. “Sit.”

Ned obeyed her, and as he sunk into the chair, the agent switched on the holotable and began opening files. Ned was careful to keep his limbs away from the surface… its low hum made him feel uneasy.

“Please place your hands on the table,” the female agent instructed.

“What for?”

“Fingerprint analysis. Your hands, please.”

Ned nervously laid his hands on the holotable, fingertips pressed lightly onto its surface as if he expected to be shocked. As he did so, a greenish yellow light flashed underneath his sweaty palms, and the table vibrated, sending a shiver down Ned’s spine.

“I need you to answer some questions about yourself for our records,” the agent continued. Ned lifted his hands from the table. “After that, Agent Buckley will escort you to the medical facility.”

“Medical facility?”

“We need to give you a preliminary health exam and take a few blood samples.”

“What happens then? Are you going to test me? See what I can do?”

“Not right away. After your exam, you will be escorted to temporary living quarters.”

“For how long?”

“Until Director Fury instructs otherwise.”

Ned sighed. “Great.”

***

Simmons and Chuck sat together in the lounge of the bus, the former sitting stiffly with her hands folded in her lap and the latter swinging her leg back and forth as she perched on the arm of one of the white couches.

“Where did you say the others went?” Chuck asked.

“The Hub,” Simmons replied. “It’s S.H.I.E.L.D.’s main headquarters.”

“Why aren’t you with them?”

“Oh, you know… someone has to watch the bus.”

“Couldn’t you just park it in the super secret government hangar?”

“Right… well… We would have… except…” Simmons was looking nervous. She wrung her hands together and she appeared to hunch over ever so slightly. “It’s… not very… clean. Oil and fuel and all those things. You know.”

“Jemma, Ned told me about the mission.”

Simmons sighed with relief. “Oh… good!”

“Yes.” Chuck sighed. “And I understand why I can’t go. I’d be in the way.”

“Yes,” Simmons said. “You would.”

They sat in awkward silence for a moment. Chuck could not help but feel useless. The most excitement she’d ever had in her life, and she was being restricted to the plane. A part of her was level-headed and rational: she really couldn’t go to the Hub. Ned going was a big enough risk alone, and if SHIELD should know about her alive-again status… Ned would never live with himself.

But she also felt angry. Angry that the team made plans without her. Angry that she had to leave her aunts. Angry that no matter what, the agents were in control of her life until Centipede could be eliminated. How long would that be? She might never return home, and the thought made her all the more enraged that she could not be with the people she loved the most.

“Would you like to come down to the lab with me?” Simmons ventured. Chuck looked at her, admiring Simmons’ gentle smile and great effort to go out of her way to make Chuck feel welcome. Chuck couldn’t bring herself to be mad at her.

“Sure.”

They made their way down a spiral staircase, which led to an empty space Chuck thought must be some sort of cargo hold. A red convertible was parked there, and she smiled as she walked over to the vehicle.

“Oh, don’t touch that, please,” Simmons called. “Coulson doesn’t like it.”

“Sorry.”

Chuck followed Simmons into the lab, a bright, clean space filled with screens and technology that she had never seen before. Simmons snapped a pair of blue rubber gloves over her hands.

“I found something in your cells,” she announced. “I wanted to tell you earlier, but I just wanted to be sure.”

“It’s ok,” Chuck replied. Simmons seemed to take her response as encouragement, for she began to launch into a rattling, excited spiel about proteins and bacteria.

“See, your cells are relatively intact because your aunts preserved your body after death; but since Ned didn’t resurrect you until a few days after your murder, you still exhibit signs of autolysis.” She peered down a microscope and began to turn some of the knobs to focus it.

“What?” Chuck asked. Simmons grabbed her by the hand and pulled her gently, placing a hand on her back and urging her to look through the microscope’s lens.

“When the body dies, your lysosomes release digestive enzymes into your cytoplasm-“

“Jemma, English, please.”

“Basically, your cells are damaged because after we die, the body begins to break down almost right away.” Chuck saw a bunch of pinkish looking cells with dark purple dots over them. She had no idea what she was supposed to be seeing, but she nodded anyways.

“What does that mean?”

“Your body is technically dead, but you still function as a live person would.”

Chuck raised her head from the microscope and looked directly into Simmons’ eyes. Her heart was pounding, but she could not help but feel disappointed. Hearing that her body showed signs of death was not what she expected, and hearing the verdict made her feel as if Ned’s resurrection had done nothing. She felt so alive, but how could her feelings and her body be so disjointed?

“I think Ned’s touch suspended the autolysis indefinitely. But I’m not sure whether this means your cells are permanently in stasis or if they will start to break down once you begin to age-“

“So, can I still heal?” Chuck interrupted, not wanting to hear about the possibility of decomposing alive. “After the Pie Hole blew up, I got some pretty nasty cuts.”

“Yes, but your new cells are just copies of your old ones. They still show signs of autolysis.”

Chuck bit her lip before replying. “So,” she said, slowly. “If my body is technically dead and Ned’s touch just freezes it in time… how am I moving? Why do I feel so alive again?”

Simmons clapped her hands together in excitement and ripped her gloves from her hands before turning to the holotable. She pressed a button and began to make swiping motions over the surface, bringing up complex diagrams and three-dimensional models of things Chuck could not begin to understand.

“I’m not quite sure,” Simmons began, “but I have a theory.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t think Ned can just suspend decomposition. You said if he keeps someone alive for too long that someone else has to die in their place? Well, I think that Ned doesn’t know the full range of his capabilities.”

“What do you mean?”

“The person who dies in place of the resurrected person has to be in proximity, right? I think that Ned’s touch somehow focuses the life energy from that person into the dead body.”

“How do you figure?”

Simmons became giddy with excitement. “You see these cells?” She brought up some images on the holotable, floating green and blue shapes in front of Chuck’s eyes. She made some motions with her hands, which enlarged the shapes and extracted a chart from the nucleus. “It seems like… like they’re sluggish. As if they’re fighting off their sources of energy. They’re not as efficient as normal cells.”

“Wouldn’t that give me a slower metabolism?” Chuck asked. Simmons made some excited gestures with her hands.

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “Haven’t you been feeling more tired than you used to?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“I think maybe your cells are unaccustomed to this life energy… like they know it’s not yours. Now, the other person, the one from whom Ned’s taking the energy, can’t hold up for long. After a minute, the strain on the living body is too great and the person dies from the stress.”

“Are you saying I’m alive because I stole someone else’s life energy?”

Simmons’ smile faded. “Not stole. It wasn’t your fault.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I’ve read about an ability similar to this before, back when I was at the academy.” Simmons pulled up a picture of a woman with long brown hair streaked with white around her forehead. “It wasn’t exactly the same, but pretty close.”

Chuck reached out towards the picture, as if touching it would allow her to speak to the woman. Where was she now? How like Ned was she?

“What do you need to confirm your theory?” Chuck asked.

“Well, it would be helpful to talk with someone who has been the target of the proximity rule, but I know the chances are-“

“I can get you one.”

Simmons looked at her, surprised. “You can?” she asked. “Who?”

Chuck looked at her with the utmost determination. “My father.”


	9. Interlude 4

The woman in the flower dress lazily ran her fingers over the arm of her chair. “We will, of course, compensate you for your services,” she told the man sitting across from her. The man wore a strange white suit made from some kind of armored material. The helmet he wore was also white and concealed his facial features, instead replacing his eyes with two glowing red orbs. His breathing sounded labored and mechanical.

“I thought I told you to never contact me again,” he said. “I want nothing to do with you and your petty games.”

“The Clairvoyant requires your skills.”

The man did not reply, but instead rose from his seat. “Your Clairvoyant is a greedy man.”

“Our motives are our own, but yours… Don’t you want to know what SHIELD has been keeping from the public? All the technology they possess, all the power.”

He placed a hand on the table. It was black and made entirely from robotic parts. “I can find that information for myself. I don’t need to do it for you.”

“So why haven’t you?”

The man lifted his hand from the table. The sound of his breathing echoed in the room.

“Don’t tell me you care about SHIELD,” the woman said. “They’re everything you oppose.”

“I don’t care for them. But I am not against them, either.” He sighed, and his red eyes glowed a bit brighter. “One last time,” he said. “After that, I will render myself intangible. Forever. Your Clairvoyant will not be able to contact me again.”

The woman in the flower dress nodded, and the man in the white suit disappeared instantly.


	10. Jail Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ned learns some interesting things during his incarceration at the Hub. Chuck talks to Emerson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: Some bits added from time of original posting!

The world may have forgotten about Emerson Cod, but Emerson Cod had not forgotten about the world.

Ned’s absence had left him with a complete mess to clean up, both literally and figuratively. The remains of the Pie Hole were crawling with forensic specialists, reminding him of little maggots in a stinking carcass, and none them seemed to question Ned and Chuck’s mysterious disappearance. “Protective Custody,” they said. But Emerson didn’t believe them.

Yet none of his efforts yielded any results. He was about to give up hope when his office phone rang several days after the bombing.

“Emerson Cod, Private Investigator.”

“Emerson! It’s Chuck!”

Emerson almost fell out of his chair. “Where the _hell_ have you been? And where’s Ned?”

“Ned’s with me. We’re both okay, but there’s no time to explain.”

“Oh, you better make time, Dead Girl.”

Chuck sighed and began to speak rather rapidly. “We’ve been taken into protective custody by a secret government agency.”

“For real?”

“Emerson, listen, I need your help. I need you to find my dad.”

The private investigator rolled his eyes and sunk backwards into his chair. “You really think this is the time for a family reunion?”

“It’s important. The agents I’m with are trying to protect Ned and me from the people who blew up the Pie Hole.”

“What has that got to do with your father?”

“One of the scientists here thinks she can figure out exactly how Ned’s power works, but we need someone who has been killed by the proximity rule… Emerson, we think he can do more than he knows how to do.”

Emerson almost fell out of his chair for a second time.

“We can’t find my dad ourselves,” Chuck continued. “The other agents are too focused on their mission. I need you to track him down.”

“Without pay?”

“Come on, Emerson.”

“Man’s gotta pay bills.”

“I’ll give you what I can when I get back.” Emerson raised an eyebrow. _If_ she came back.

“Fine,” he acquiesced.

“In my apartment there’s a notebook I’ve kept since I was three. It has a list of all the places my dad and I wanted to visit when I was little. Start there.”

“Ok.”

“I’ve got to go. I don’t want the other agents knowing what I’m doing.”

“That’ll turn out well.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Emerson said quickly. “You be careful.”

“I will,” Chuck replied.

“Oh, before you go, you should know something.”

“What?”

“The other Frost sisters,” Emerson said. “You know, the Stepford cuckoos. They’re all dead.”

***

Ned sat on a cot. It was much nicer than the one on the plane, but it was still a cot. At least the room was no interrogation chamber. Probably.

He had been given fresh clothes: jeans, another black t-shirt, shoes and socks, underwear. An agent had even provided him with a swishy navy blue windbreaker with a giant SHIELD logo on the back, though he draped it over the nearby chair for the time being. He was pleased to have been showered and fed, but not so pleased that he had been put in a little room by himself.

He felt like a caged animal in a zoo.

The door to his room had no handle, and when Ned tried to push it open, it refused to move. The only way he could guess to open it was the electronic wall panel outside that reminded him of a video chat interface. The door did, however, have a rather large glass window for him to see into the hallway, but his view was limited, so he began to pace back and forth, trying to catch the attention of someone, anyone, without success. A camera on the ceiling was fixed on him and he had no privacy at all except for the small closet where the bathroom was located.

Worst of all, the agents had clamped a metal ring around his right wrist that logged his movements wherever he went.

 _This,_ Ned thought, _is how my nightmares begin._

Processing had taken the greater part of the day, and Ned recalled it with striking precision. Countless agents asked him countless questions, and he was forced to tell these strangers about his past. His father; his mother; his dog, Digby (who was staying with Olive) – all things about which Ned had very pointed emotions. He wondered if they would now be in the index forever, just like he was. Would they be able to find him now wherever he went? Ned hoped not, but he saw little chance of escaping SHIELD’s ever-present gaze.

The only thing he felt proud about was the way he withheld information from them about Chuck’s existence. If SHIELD wanted to know everything, Ned had to be sure there was something they could not touch. True, he could not touch her either, but even so, Chuck was his tie to home, and he didn’t want to give that to some government agency. The mere thought of her in a cell like this – a cell devoid of sunshine and life – was enough to make him feel sick. It wouldn’t matter that she was alive again. This place would make her dead.

Though there were no windows in his chamber, Ned thought it must be close to dusk. He picked at the bandage on his left forearm – the place where the lab technicians had taken a few blood samples – and shivered at the memory of plunging needles and vials being filled with oozy red liquid. He wondered if even now they were slipping slides under microscopes and mapping out his entire genome.

After what seemed like hours, Ned finally heard footsteps approach his cell. He looked up to see Coulson standing on the other side of the door.

“Ready?” he asked. Ned nodded and rose from his seat, eager to be released.

Coulson aligned his eye with the high-tech wall panel and a red sensor swiped quickly across his face. The screen flashed red and a robotic voice spoke, “Access denied.”

“That’s strange,” Coulson said, his eyebrows knitted in confusion. He lined up his eye again, and once more the sensor read his features. However, the red screen appeared as before and the voice denied him access to Ned’s cell. Ned’s heart began to race and his heart leapt to his throat.

“Can’t you get me out?” he asked, his voice strained. He placing a hand on the door as Coulson began to touch some icons on the panel’s screen.

“Call transferring,” came the voice, and after a few moments, an unfamiliar female face appeared on the screen.

“Tech Support,” the female said. Then, after a pause, “Ah, Agent Coulson. How can I help you?”

“Hello, Claire. I need access to cell number 24 but the system seems to be malfunctioning.”

“The system is working perfectly. You do not have access to that particular cell.”

“There must be some mistake. I’m level 8. Level 8 agents have access to all subjects.”

“My records indicate your access has been restricted. Would you like to submit a formal request to Director Fury?”

“No, Claire. Thanks anyway.”

The screen went blank, and immediately, Coulson dropped his composed demeanor. He regretfully looked through the glass window into Ned’s eyes.

“I can’t get you out,” he said.

Needles. Knives. Testing. Poking. Prodding. Bright lights and men and women in masks and rubber gloves. Dead animals, live animals, dead people all around him. His heart in a metal bowl, his blood spattered over the walls. A blue balloon tied to his big toe and flashes of melting ice cream and Chuck’s face fading into shadows.

Ned wanted to scream, but the noise caught in his throat.

***

Fitz, Skye, Ward, and May gathered around the holotable in the control room aboard the bus. Skye was rapidly tapping icons on the surface while the others looked on eagerly.

“What’s all the fuss?” came a voice from behind them. Ward turned around to see that Simmons and Chuck had followed them up from the cargo hold. He sighed with impatience.

“Coulson contacted us,” Ward told her. “He thinks Fury’s restricted his access. He can’t get Ned out.”

“Oh my god,” Chuck gasped, clasping her hands together under her chin.

“Don’t worry,” Fitz reassured her. “We’ll get him out… somehow.”

Ward’s thoughts were buzzing. After years of training, he had learned to control his emotions in the face of a crisis. He did not panic, nor did he allow fear to paralyze his movements. He simply looked for a solution. Every problem had a solution, or so he believed.

“Skye,” Ward began, “can you hack into SHIELD’s system, somehow open Ned’s cell so Coulson can get to him?”

“Not from here. If I try it anywhere within the nearest 50 miles, they’ll know it was me,” Skye replied. “Last time, I used a crawler and only had 3 minutes. I might be able to navigate their system in that time, but I can’t guarantee it’ll work.”

“We can use the crawler again,” May said. “Once we have it going, Skye can open the cell door and Ward will assist Coulson in getting Ned out. I’ll maneuver the bus over the Hub so we can pick them up afterwards.”

“How will you do that?” Skye asked. “There are agents everywhere. They’d be all over you in like five seconds.”

“Not if you take out the security cameras as well.”

“I can’t do all that in three minutes.”

“Fitz?” Ward asked.

“I might be able to give you some blackout,” Fitz replied. “But SHIELD might be expecting us to do something like that. I’ll do what I can.”

Ward sighed. “If we run into trouble, we’ll have to use the dendrotoxin pistols.”

Ward hated putting so much pressure on Skye. More than he wanted to admit, he wanted to reach out and take her hand in reassurance, to tell her he believed she could do anything… with the right focus. He had seen what she could do and the more he spent time with her, the more and more impressed he became… but he would never say those things. He had to be the commanding officer now, the level head. Coulson had made the right decision in recruiting Skye, but now it was time for her to prove it.

“What about Andrews?” Fitz asked. Ward snapped out of his musings.

“We’ll have to abort that mission,” Ward said. “It’s too risky.”

“This extraction is suicide,” Simmons joined in. “If you’re caught, there’s no way they’ll ever let you out again. You’ll be court-martialed into nonexistence.”

“I’m willing to take the risk,” Ward replied. “Ned’s one of ours, and I promised to protect the team. Even from SHIELD itself.” May nodded in agreement.

“I want to help,” Chuck chimed in. “Give me a pistol. I want to get Ned out of there.”

“You don’t exactly have combat training,” May said, slight annoyance in her voice. Chuck slammed her fist on the holotable, making Fitz wince.

“I don’t care!” she pleaded. “I’m going even if I have to walk in by myself.” Simmons placed a hand on Chuck’s forearm.

“Fine,” Ward agreed, folding his arms against his chest. Simmons looked at him in disbelief.

“Ward, you can’t be serious,” she said. Ward raised his eyebrows.

“Simmons, let’s go get the pistols from the lab. Chuck, come with us. May, you and Skye and Fitz figure out how we’re going to get in and out of there with minimal chance of exposure.” The team nodded and set to work pulling up floor plans of the Hub while Ward followed Simmons out of the command center towards the spiral staircase, Chuck following close behind him. He could sense her anger and she stomped down the stairs.

“You’re mental,” Simmons spat as she passed through the sliding doors to the lab. She walked over to a heavy metal case and unclasped it to reveal the gun loaded with a glowing blue magazine.

“Give it to me,” Ward commanded, holding his hand out to her. Simmons rolled her eyes and lifted the weapon from the case, reluctantly relinquishing it to his grip.

“What does it do?” Chuck asked, trying to peer around Ward’s shoulder. Ward made a motion as if testing the weight of the gun, allowing it to fit into the curve of his hand and rest comfortably in his palm.

“It’s a tranquilizer,” he said, turning to face her. Chuck bent over the weapon, trying to take in its mechanics, and she did, Ward raised his hand and shot a dart directly into her shoulder. Simmons gasped, and as Chuck fell, Ward reached out and caught her gently in his arms.

“Are you completely mad?” Simmons yelled. Ward smiled as he lifted Chuck’s body onto the holotable.

“She’ll be fine,” he said, laying Chucks arms delicately across her abdomen. Simmons appeared beside him and brushed away a strand of hair that had fallen across Chuck’s eyes.

“I know,” she said, “but she’ll be so angry when she wakes up!”

***  
Alone. That’s what he was now.

Ned sat on the edge of his cot with his head in his hands and his heart heavy in his chest. Coulson had left, perhaps too guilty to look him in the face, and Ned was almost glad he was gone. How long before the experiments started?

The robotic voice of the wall panel spoke, “Access granted,” and Ned knew the rest of his life as a lab rat was about to begin. He looked up and saw two large, male agents standing in the doorway.

“Would you come with us, please?” said one, his voice deep and monotone.

“Do I have a choice?” Ned asked, rising from his cot with stiff limbs. One of the agents grasped him by the arm and marched him down the hall to an elevator. As they stepped inside, Ned could feel the air around him constrict, leaving his throat tight and his body shaking. Everything felt colder now that he knew he would never see Chuck again.

The elevator began to ascend, and three floors later, they stepped into a hallway lined with blue carpet, a stark difference from the high-tech quarters below. Ned felt the agents push him out of the elevator and together, they made their way into an office that looked strangely like the one Ned had seen on the plane, except it was conspicuously free of paper files. Behind the desk sat Director Fury.

“Ned,” he said. “Take a seat. McCarthy and Ellis, you’re dismissed.”

The agents retreated, leaving Ned alone with the man in the eye patch and black coat. Fury tapped on his desk, which Ned now saw was a holotable, and a number of files including his processing papers and medical exams appeared on the screen.

“Are you going to keep me here forever?” Ned ventured. He still had not yet sat down. Fury looked up at him from the holotable.

“Not forever, no,” he replied. “But we can’t have you running around when Centipede wants you so badly. Have a seat.”

Ned sunk into a leather chair opposite the director, who proceeded to page through his files.

“What are you going to do with me?” Ned asked, though he had a feeling he knew the answer already. Fury placed his hands on the holotable.

“I know you’ve been with Coulson’s team since the bombing,” he said plainly. Ned was so shocked he was rendered speechless. “I don’t much care that they’ve been keeping secrets from me, and I expected them to attempt to break you out. I’m not sure why they brought you here in the first place, but now you have to decide what you’re going to do.”

“I… I don’t think I understand.”

“Why do you think Centipede wants you so badly?”

Ned shifted in his seat. “I can bring people back from the dead.”

“Obviously.” Fury raised his only visible eyebrow. “Do you know what this organization does?”

“No,” Ned admitted. “I never thought to ask.”

Fury pulled out more files, including a picture of Raina, the woman in the flower dress. “Centipede builds super soldiers,” Fury began. “They use a derivative of the Extremis serum to modify their test subject’s muscle mass and turn them into superhuman fighters.” He lifted his hands from the desk, which caused a holographic screen to float in front of Ned’s face. It began to play footage of men performing amazing feats of strength, from punching through brick walls to ripping people’s arms out of their sockets. The violence made Ned shiver.

“If they just build super soldiers,” Ned asked, “what do they want with me?”

“Didn’t Coulson tell you?” Fury collapsed the holographic screen. “They want to use you to resurrect their fallen subjects.”

“Why? Can’t they just make new soldiers?”

“They could, but based on what Coulson gathered, resurrection might be the key to the next stage in their plans, whatever those are.”

“If they’re looking for resurrection, why’d they kill Dr. Frost?”

Fury leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs, looking at Ned intently as if deciding whether or not to trust him. After a few moments of silence, he finally swiped his hand over the table and opened new files, including all the pictures of blondes and redheads that Ned had briefly caught Coulson’s team studying in the control room before their mission began. Ned leaned forward in his chair, anticipation hanging over him like a cloud.

“I’ve seen these before,” he said. “On Coulson’s plane.”

“Yes,” Fury said. “We’ve noticed this pattern for some time. Coulson’s team just managed to… extract the information from us.”

Ned wondered why Coulson would need to obtain SHIELD intel by “extraction,” but he remained silent.

“Do you notice anything about these women?” Fury asked. Ned studied the pictures. He saw an image of Dr. Frost, her lovely features framed by her white-blonde hair and deep blue eyes. To the left were three more pictures of almost identical women.

“Wait,” Ned said. “These women… they’re Frost’s sisters. They came to my friend Emerson Cod to ask him to solve her murder.”

“Yes. Now they’re all dead.”

Ned looked up from the table in shock. “What? Why?”

“Keep looking.”

There were more women. All white-blonde with blue eyes. But there was something else about them that Ned couldn’t quite place, something that connected them and it was staring him in the face. Once Ned recognized what it was, he blinked a few times and had to rub his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

“They all… look the same,” he said. “All the blonde ones.”

“Yes,” Fury said. “They’re all clones.”

“But how is that possible?”

“Have you heard of The World?”

“Yeah, it was a genetics research facility in the UK. It closed five years ago because of unethical testing.”

Fury brought forth more files, including a picture of the facility and several snapshots of the inside of the lab. Ned perused them with heightened scrutiny as Fury began to explain the situation to him.

“The World was responsible for developing the first human clone about ten years ago. They used one particular exemplar for their process, a woman with special abilities.”

“What kinds of abilities?” Ned’s heart began to race. Was it someone like him?

Fury brought up another video clip showing a red-headed woman standing on top of a pile of rubble, her skin a disturbing grayish color and black veins crawling up the side of her neck like vines on an old house. Her eyes were black, and she stood at the center of a violent vortex, rocks and wires and pieces of debris spinning around her at dangerous speeds. Ned’s jaw dropped open.

“This woman’s name is Jean Grey,” Fury said. “Inside her is an entity known as the Phoenix, a life force capable of matter and energy manipulation, telepathy, telekinesis, and bio-manipulation.”

“Bio-what?”

“It can sustain life or reverse death.”

Ned fell silent. His world, his tiny world in which he was the only supernatural element, just became immensely bigger. How many other people were out there that had powers like his? But this was no time to form a superhuman support group.

He briefly had a moment of panic. “Am… Am I the Phoenix?”

Fury chuckled. “No,” he said. “I don’t think you are. Your powers are too weak and unpredictable, compared to those of these hosts.”

Ned sighed. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed. What does that have to do with the Frost sisters?” he asked after some time.

Fury brought up another video, this time showing a woman in a white bodysuit exhibiting the same behaviors as Ms. Grey.

“Emma Frost. She was also a host for the Phoenix force. Sherry Frost and her sisters were clones of this woman and the red-headed victims were all clones of Ms. Grey. All of them were involved with The World until it closed, after which they fled to different countries to avoid detection. We’ve been tracking them ever since, but they’ve generally been non-threats to the human population. Apparently, Centipede thought otherwise.”

“What happened to these women?”

“Ms. Grey died in 2006 following an incident in San Francisco. Ms. Frost has not been seen since 2009. Most of their clones have been killed.”

“Killed… why?”

“Our best guess is noncompliance.”

“Why would Centipede want _them?_ ”

“The Phoenix force has not been detected on earth since Emma Frost’s disappearance. I think it’s safe to assume that these clones had the same compatibility with it as Ms. Frost and Ms. Grey, and Centipede thought that by enlisting them into their service, they could somehow draw the Phoenix out. They are foolish, of course. No one can control the Phoenix, not even the host.” He collapsed the video screens before lacing his fingers together and resting them on the table. “Why are you telling me all this?” Ned asked. Fury didn’t make any slight movements, putting Ned on edge. “Centipede is still out there, looking for clones and ways to resurrect their fallen soldiers. The way I see it, you have two choices. You can help us or spend the rest of your life as a lab rat. Either way, we cannot allow you to leave this facility.”

“What do you mean by ‘help?’” Ned asked, wary. Fury leaned forward and stared into Ned’s eyes so intensely that Ned thought his gaze would pierce right through his skull.

“Work for us,” Fury said. “Revive our agents. Resurrect enemy soldiers for interrogation.”

Ned fell silent once more. The offer was tempting. If he was trapped here, under SHIELD’s ever-present gaze, he wanted to avoid being cut open and experimented upon. But did he want to be one of them? Did he want to spend his days using his powers under orders, day-in and day-out only within the walls of this base, never seeing Chuck again? He slowly let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding.

“I’ll give you some time to think it over,” Fury interrupted, pressing a button on the side of his desk. Two agents entered his office almost immediately. “Escort our guest back to his quarters. See you later… Pie Maker.”

Ned felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, and without saying a word, he willfully followed his keepers out of Fury’s office. He was barely aware of his feet moving, and nothing around him seemed to be real. Flying debris, blackened eyes, and swirling ribbons of red and white hair danced in his mind, as if he were trapped in a snow globe and the snow was the shattered pieces of his ignorance floating away all around him. Nothing around him registered in his mind except the absolute sincerity of Fury’s offer and the possibility of discovering more people who could do things like he could. Centipede. Extremis. Super soldiers. The Phoenix force. These things were larger than life, and yet they were real. What other things were out there, bigger, more terrible things that Ned was yet unaware of? Were there other people besides himself who could bring people back from the dead? Where were they? Why didn’t he know of them? Ned suddenly felt less alone than when he was trapped in the cell, even less than he felt on the plane with the other agents.

But no, he could not accept Fury’s offer. As much as the prospect enticed him away from a life of tests and examinations, somehow he knew that it would not bring him peace. Something about Fury did not seem right – he was a man for whom the ends justified the means, Ned thought, and Ned could not imagine himself using his power for anything other than helping people. He wasn’t entirely convinced that what SHIELD would use him for was like anything he had done in Papen County, and though he now understood Coulson had been withholding information from him, Ned knew Coulson’s team was different. They were agents, but they were not SHIELD.

Suddenly the elevator jerked to a halt. Just as the elevator doors opened, two glowing blue specks of light whizzed past Ned’s ears, embedding themselves in the chests of his escorts. They dropped to the floor, and as the doors widened, Ned could see Coulson and Ward waiting for him.

“Let’s go,” said Coulson. “May’s got the bus waiting and Fitz says they don’t think he can block the security feed for long.”

The three of them scurried down a hallway, Ward and Coulson concealing their tranquilizer pistols inside their suit jackets. They tried to walk as casually as possible, gripping Ned by either arm as if they were his guardians.

“We’ve only got about 3 minutes before the cameras come on again and Coulson’s faked security clearance runs out,” Ward muttered under his breath. “We need to get past the doors leading to the south wing. From there we can get out through the maintenance sector.”

“Can we make it in time?” Ned asked.

“If we hurry.”

They turned a corner into another hallway, one thankfully void of other agents until one emerged from a doorway to the left and, upon spotting the three of them, immediately approached them with a casual grin on his face. He was bald and wore glasses.

“Phil,” he said in greeting. “What brings you here?” He blocked the three of them from advancing down the hallway.

“Just checking up on a few things,” Coulson replied, trying to ease their way past him without success. “Sorry, Jasper, but I’m in a hurry. We’ll talk later.”

“Wait a minute, before you go, I need to tell you about the new protocol for 8-5-5s.” The agent began to flip through the file he carried in his left hand. “That 0-8-4 your team handled, the one with the Chitauri virus – Fury had us revamp the whole system to make sure nothing like that happens to our other agents. Now, after we identify the 8-5-5, we have a new method of documentation and containment to avoid any unnecessary contamination.”

“I really don’t have time right now.”

“This will only take a second-“

Coulson sighed and reached into his jacket. “Sorry, Jasper.” He aimed the tranquilizer pistol and shot the man in the chest, stepping over his body as he dropped to the ground, papers fluttering everywhere. Ned’s jaw dropped open.

“Agent Sitwell really needs to stay out of our way or he’s going to keep getting shot,” Coulson said. Ned was confused, but he thought he saw Ward smile slightly.

The three of them continued to hurry down the hallway until they reached a set of sliding glass doors. Ward lined his eye up with the wall panel first, and the doors slid open granting him passage without incident. The doors closed behind him so fast Ned wondered how one person could make it through so quickly.

“When I am scanned, you’ll have to follow close behind me to avoid getting trapped in the doors,” Coulson explained. “Don’t hesitate. Just run through. Got it?” Ned nodded.

Coulson leaned forward and lined his eye up with the panel as Ward had done. The doors slid open, and Ned was prepared to jump through them when he suddenly felt himself being yanked violently backward by his right arm. Coulson rushed forward as Ned’s wristband became magnetized to the wall panel so firmly that he could not tear himself free. In a panic, he reached out a hand as the glass doors slid closed, separating him from the agents.

***

“No no no no no!” Ward yelled as the glass doors slid closed. He tried to open them again, but the wall panel refused to grant him access to the other side. Skye’s hack must have been detected, and their three minutes were up. Ward landed a frustrated kick to the wall beside him.

“Call Fitz and Skye,” Coulson instructed. “Maybe they can give us one more hack.”

“Skye,” Ward said, tapping his earpiece, “Ned’s trapped on the other side of the door and his tracker’s been magnetized.”

Skye’s voice came through distraught and panicky. “What… it’s only been two minutes!”

“I know but you need to get it open. Now. Before someone comes.”

“We can’t,” came Fitz’s voice. “SHIELD systems are all over us. We’d never get through for more than a second.”

“We only need a second. Just demagnetize the tracker and open the doors. Fast.”

Ward paced the hallway, his heart beginning to race in anticipation. A slight sweat began to break out on his forehead, and he struggled to keep his emotions under control. He had to be level-headed in order to work this out. But it looked like he was failing in his mission, and it bothered him.

He spotted agents coming towards Ned on the other side of the door. They ran, and some of them drew their guns; undoubtedly, they had been informed of the two tranquilized men in the elevator. Coulson spoke without taking his eyes off the agents.

“Skye…” he said. Ward tapped his earpiece as if the motion would make Skye and Fitz work faster. “There are agents coming straight for us!”

“I’m working!” she said.

“Skye!”

“I… I can’t do it!”

Suddenly, all the lights in the hallway went black. The backup generator kicked in almost immediately, but only remained functional for a second before the lights flickered and died. Coulson reached out and grabbed Ward’s forearm, hoping to keep them together as everyone was plunged into total darkness.


	11. Interlude 5

Director Fury leaned back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the table and watching the security feed of Coulson and Ward escorting Ned down the hallway to the south wing. At the same time, a video screen hovered in the air before him and a silhouetted male figure spoke directly and sternly.

“The council is directing you to have the subject detained for testing,” it said. “Do not allow him to slip your grasp, Fury.” The screen went blank as the councilman disconnected their call.

Fury smiled in spite of himself as he watched Coulson fire a dart into Agent Sitwell’s chest. He was glad he had told Ned about the Phoenix force, as he was now sure he’d share it with the team and they would be well on their way to tracking down Centipede. Coulson almost surely had knowledge that he was withholding from SHIELD, but instead of forcing the information from him, Fury had decided to nudge the rogue team in a more productive direction. The only thing that stood in his was the council, and any overt method of disobeying their command after the Battle of New York would assuredly lose him his position at headquarters.

And so, with regret, he watched as Ned’s tracker became magnetized. This was the limit of his help. Fury could not intervene.

But then, his entire office went dark, and his holotable flickered off. “He’s here,” he thought, and with a smile Fury stood and looked out his window into the dusk.


	12. The Lazarus Project

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ned and the team learn some startling things from the dead agent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May be some slight deviations from the character (you'll see who in a bit), but hey...

Ned couldn’t see a thing. However, he did manage to free himself from the magnetized wall panel, which would have been a plus if he could find his way out.

“Agent Coulson?” he called. “Ward?”

“We’re here,” came a muffled voice from the other side of the door. Ned guessed it to be Coulson’s. “Don’t move.”

“Got it,” Ned said.

A tiny light glowed through the glass. Ward had a flashlight. _The real super soldier,_ Ned thought.

“Hey,” called one of the agents behind him. “Don’t move!”

“Got it,” Ned replied. Then, under his breath, “Again.”

Ward pointed the flashlight directly into Ned’s face so that Ned had to block it with his hand. Annoyed, he tried to open the glass door, but it would not budge and his sweaty palms just made a high-pitched squealing sound that were as cringe-worthy as nails on a chalkboard.

Suddenly, he felt a slight breeze ruffle his hair.

“What was that?” said one of the men behind him.

“What?” asked another.

Everyone was silent, and Ward still had the light fixed on Ned, though he had thankfully lowered it so it shined square in the chest. The breeze came again, and one of the agents fired a shot at it, which bounced off the glass door and buried itself in one of the walls. Ned ducked involuntarily, lifting his hands to cover his head.

“Don’t do that!” an agent scolded. Ned’s heart was racing and he touched his ears, arms, and shoulders to make sure he wasn’t bleeding. _I doubt I could bring myself back to life if they actually hit me next time,_ he thought. The agents continued to keep their gaze fixed on him, though Ned was unsure why. He was not doing anything… at least, not that he knew of. But most importantly, he could see almost nothing. What was causing that breeze? And what had the agents seen?

The doors suddenly opened with a whoosh.

“Ned, come on!” Ward urged, stepping forward and grabbing Ned in a ironclad grip. Assisted by the pull on his arm, Ned quickly leaped through the doors, followed by yells of “Stop!” and “Don’t!” by the agents behind him. They started to run towards him, intent on pulling him back, but the doors snapped shut again, leaving Ned safely in the care of Coulson and Ward, separate from the others.

“You alright?” Ward briefly asked Ned, who was panting from all the excitement and simply nodded in response. The agent pat him briefly on the back and turned to Coulson. “What’s going on? Coms are dead. How are we supposed to get out in the dark and with no guidance from the bus?”

“Just be patient,” Coulson said.

“What and just wait for SHIELD to turn the power back on? Hey Director Fury, we’re trying to break Ned out of your holding cells, so could you please turn the lights on?”

“It’s not SHIELD. Shhhh!” Coulson shushed him. “Point your flashlight through the doors.” Ward did as instructed only to see the faces of several agents, all expressing fear, anger, and confusion simultaneously.

But the light caught the shape of another person, one not dressed in the official suits of a SHIELD agent. It wore a protective set of futuristic-looking armor, complete with a helmet that obscured the facial features. With surprise, Ned saw that it hovered just a few inches above the ground, but most peculiarly it was completely translucent, almost like a…

“Ghost!” yelled one of the agents, spurring the others to turn away from the glass doors and begin firing their guns at the form. But none of the bullets hit their mark. Instead, the figure hovered completely still.

“Leave us,” it said, and its eyes (or what Ned thought should be its eyes) began to glow a deep, blood-red. Its voice was low and distorted, as if speaking through a Darth Vader helmet, sending a shiver down Ned’s spine that paralyzed him with fear. The agents, however, retreated down the hallway, and Ned almost laughed at the childish way they ran tripping over one another in the dark, but he was too frightened to even smile.

The figure passed through the glass doors and came to hover a few inches away from the three remaining spectators. Ward and Ned both stepped backwards instinctively, but Coulson remained fixed.

“Mr. Morley,” he said in greeting. The figure nodded.

“Coulson,” he said.

“I thought this was you. What bring you here? I thought you hated the government.”

“I do.”

“Still sabotaging corporations in your spare time?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

“I have come to help you, Agent Coulson. Director Fury alerted me to this predicament.”

“Fury?” Ward asked, becoming more bold since Coulson’s acknowledgement. “Fury called you? Why didn’t he just go the easy route and just let us walk out of here? He has the authority.” Ned kept himself rigid, feeling as wound as a spring. What other surprises would he find at SHIELD? _I don't do loose,_ he had told Chuck what seemed like a lifetime ago. _I prefer tightly wound. Not shapeless with extra room for surprises._ Well, he was not prepared for this surprise and he didn’t want anything else to come floating down the dark hallway in the middle of their breakout.

Coulson nodded in response to Ward’s outburst. “Yes, but his control has been shakey since New York. The council is watching him,” he replied. Ned raised his eyebrows in confusion, though no one could see his expression in the dark. There was obviously more to SHIELD’s chain of command than Ned knew, but now was not the time to ask questions.

“I’m surprised you agreed,” Coulson continued, addressing the floating man. “You never seemed to be fond of SHIELD.”

“You are not SHIELD,” Morley replied, pointing a finger directly at Coulson. Coulson nodded, though Ned could see Morley’s reply unsettled him on some level.

“Mr. Morley, this is Agent Grand Ward. He’s one of my team members. Ward, John Morley is a data engineer and weapons and technologies expert. He did… all this.” Coulson gestured to the darkness surrounding them.

“John Morley is not my real name,” said the figure, dropping his hand. “But it’s what I gave to SHIELD the last time we met.”

“Why aren’t you locked up in one of SHIELD’s science containment systems?” Ward asked.

“As if they could hold me,” Morley replied, almost playfully. Coulson gestured to Ned.

“This is Ned-“

“Yes,” Morley interrupted. “I know who he is.”

“How do you know me?” Ned asked. Morley’s eyes glowed brightly in the darkness.

“I recently made a deal with Centipede,” he said. Coulson straightened his back. “I agreed to assist them in obtaining a few records from your index and some in exchange for my usual fee.”

“You’re very predictable, Morley,” Coulson said, though not unkindly.

“Usual fee?” Ward asked. Ned could sense that he was trying to keep his anger restrained and professional. “This guy gave Centipede valuable intel, sir, and you treat it like it’s nothing.”

“Mr. Morley is an opportunist,” Coulson corrected him. “It’s just luck that they haven’t figured out that Morley’s an asset of ours.”

“For the right price,” Morley said, annoyed. Ward seemed to accept Morley’s response, but it was obvious by the way he stood, drawn up to his full height as if trying to intimidate the others, that he didn’t trust the floating man.

“Doesn’t the Clairvoyant know what you’re up to?” Ward asked. “I mean, Centipede has always been one step ahead of us this whole time.”

“The suit renders him intangible and invisible-“ Coulson began.

“But not at the same time,” Morley interrupted.

“Which deflects all attempts to probe his mind,” Coulson finished. “You know how the Clairvoyant couldn’t see what happened to me when I was brought back to life?”

“You were brought back to life?” Ned and Morley said together. Morley’s voice rattled Ned’s ribcage, and it was unpleasant.

“Oh please, you knew that,” Coulson said, more to Morley than Ned. The floating man crossed his arms and chuckled. “Anyways, the Clairvoyant seems unable to know what Morley’s up to as long as he’s in that suit.”

“I developed it myself,” Morley continued. “It’s all technology, really. The intangibility, the levitation…” His fingers clicked as he made a motion as if rapping his nails on a tabletop. Ned looked at the figure warily, unsure of whether or not he wanted to entrust his freedom to a technological mercenary. But Coulson seemed to trust him, and strangely, Coulson’s face was eerily framed against the red light of Morley’s eyes. He couldn’t be sure, but Ned thought they were trained on him, like beholding the face of an old friend yet not quite believing him to be real. Something happened between them in the past that made Coulson completely sure of himself, and Ned had to trust _him,_ if no one else.

Suddenly, Morley’s eyes shifted from Coulson to Ned, and the figure reached out a robotic hand towards him.

“Let me see that,” he said as he appeared to grasp Ned about the wrist, though his intangibility prevented Ned from feeling anything. In the red glow, Ned watched as Morley rendered his hand corporeal and delicately removed the tracking bracelet, crushing it afterwards and tossing it on the floor.

“I never knew you to destroy technology,” Coulson said. Morley shrugged as his hand became intangible again.

“Primitive piece of hardware,” he said. “I can make one in my sleep.”

Coulson looked around, though Ned didn’t know what for, since the entire hallway was dark.

“Can you get us out of here?” Coulson asked. Morley nodded.

“Yes. It should take your technicians approximately thirty minutes to figure out how to turn the power back on.”

“Thirty minutes!” Ward exclaimed. “Coulson, we could get to Andrews.” Coulson nodded.

“Morley, would you mind a little side trip?”

***

“Damn it!” Skye yelled, slamming her hands down on the table.

“What, what is it?” Simmons asked. She had come up from the lab to sit with the others.

“We’ve lost coms,” Fitz told her.

Simmons looked nervous, “Does that mean…?”

“I don’t know,” Skye replied. “We’ll just have to wait and find out.”

“They’ll be fine,” Fitz said, trying to convince everyone, including himself. “I mean, Coulson can get out of anything and Ward’s like James Bond.”

“But what about Ned?” Simmons asked.

Fitz paused and ran a hand through his curly hair. “How are we going to tell Chuck?”

***

After escaping agents with flashlights, narrowly avoiding tripping down a flight of stairs, and maneuvering through a maze of hallways, Ned, Coulson, Ward, and Morley entered the morgue. They had twelve minutes left until the Hub became fully operational.

“You know, this could be seen as a terrorist attack,” Ned had said as they walked down the stairs. Morley let out a disturbing baritone laugh, which rendered Ned silent for the rest of the trip.

When they entered the morgue, which was beginning to lose its refrigeration, Coulson took Ward’s flashlight and began looking at the drawers for Andrews’ name. Ned shivered. He never got used to human corpses not matter how many of them he’d touched in the past.

“You think you could turn the lights back on?” Ward asked. Morley shook his head.

“Not unless you want the rest of the base to have power.”

But Morley did turn on a bright light on his suit that illuminated the morgue enough for everyone to see relatively well. It bounced off of the metal lockers and created an eerie sheen that reminded Ned of staring into the sun for too long. Coulson continued to skim until he found the correct drawer and pulled the door open. It made a metallic clack sound and the wheels squealed as the body was pulled out of its chamber.

Agent Terry Andrews had been shot twice in the back and once in the neck, and thankfully for Ned, his wounds were perfect black circles on his pale white skin. Coulson stuffed his hands in his pants pockets and nodded at Ward, who immediately aimed his pistol at the body. “In case he tries to run,” he said when Ned looked at him curiously. Morley hovered behind Ned uncomfortably, so close that if he had been corporeal, Ned was sure they’d be touching.

“Remember,” Coulson said, “we’ll only have one minute, so I’ll do the talking. I don’t want any of us dying by proximity.”

Ned prepared to start his watch. He had resurrected dozens of people in Papen County, but for some reason, this time, he was nervous. What would Andrews say?

After pressing the timer button, Ned tapped Andrews on the face, causing a rush of energy to flow through his arm and out his fingertip. The sensation spread heat throughout his entire body, as if he were somehow sucking in energy instead of pushing it out, but the feeling lasted only for a second and he watched as his touch sent a warm yellow glow throughout the agent’s body that opened his eyes almost immediately. Morley chuckled in amusement.

“Coulson,” Andews said, his voice rough from the wound to his throat. “Where am I?”

“No time to explain. We need your help. What did you see before Centipede shot you?”

“What am I doing here? Last thing I remember, I was passing out.” Ned anxiously looked at his watch, resorting to holding it close to his face to see more clearly in the dim lighting.

“Andrews,” Coulson pleaded, “there’s no time. Please.” _Tick tick tick._

“It wasn’t Centipede,” Andrews said at last. Coulson looked as if he hadn’t heard him.

“What?” he asked. Andrews shook his head.

“Centipede didn’t shoot me.” _Tick tick tick._

“But you were found near the Frost site.”

“What Frost site?”

Coulson genuinely looked stunned. A few seconds went by in silence before Ward had to clear his throat to remind them they were wasting precious time.

“Who shot you, Andrews?”

“I made note of all my activities in my personal files before I went on mission. Everything should be there.”

“Andrews!”

“Someone I was tracking that slipped our radar about ten years ago. Edward Edwards.”

Ned panicked and touched Andrews again, watching the agent’s body light up once more before settling back into death on the cool metal table. Morley chucked again, his wordlessness beginning to grate on Ned’s nerves, but Coulson and Ward looked at Ned with annoyance.

“We still had a few seconds,” Coulson said, irritated. “Why’d you touch him again?”

Ned dropped his arms to his sides and tried to stop his heart from exploding out of his chest.

“Edward Edwards is my father.”

***

The facts were these: Ned’s father, in his youth, was stationed in Egypt as a member of the Blue Berets, a peacekeeping troop for the United Nations. He served with his friends Charles Charles (Chuck’s father) and Dwight Dixon (killed by proximity upon Charles’ revival), the latter of whom was present when Mr. Edwards met Ned’s mother. All three of them received silver pocket watches engraved with their initials, and Ned, in his Papen County crime-solving days, had laid eyes on two of them.

But following the death of Ned’s mother, Mr. Edwards immediately shipped young Ned off to the Longborough School for Boys at the age of 9, promising to return but never doing so. He would later send Young Ned a postcard informing him that he had moved away from their home in Coeur d’Coeurs; but he was unaware that Ned snuck out of his school on Halloween, draped in an old boarding-school standard issue sheet, and observed him settling in with his new family in a new town. Later, when Ned met his half brothers, Maurice and Ralston, at the Conjurer’s Castle, he discovered that Mr. Edwards had abandoned them too.

But Ned’s father had not been entirely absent. On the contrary, Mr. Edwards was a frequent patron of the Pie Hole, though he never identified himself to the Pie Maker. On more than one occasion, Ned’s father had been secretly involved in his son’s exploits, from saving Ned and Olive Snook from falling to their deaths to arranging Dwight Dixon’s body in his hotel room to give the appearance of death by natural causes. Ned did not know it was his father who had attempted to help him at the bombing, but was unable to prevent Centipede from dragging him away.

Now, after twenty years, it looked like Ned’s father would fully reenter his son’s life.

***

Simmons bit her lip as she, Fitz, and Skye looked through the glass doors to the lab at Chuck’s unconscious form.

“Are you sure they got Ned?” Simmons asked. Her body was beginning to tire from all the worrying she had been experiencing for the past forty-five minutes.

“No,” Skye replied. “But last I heard he was separated from our guys by a glass security door and agents were heading straight for him.”

“Coulson hasn’t checked in yet,” Fitz added. “We can’t be sure of anything right now.”

Simmons looked around the cargo hold, as if suddenly aware of her surroundings. “Where’s May?” she asked, surprised the agent hadn’t barged in to the Hub to go looking for them.

“Keeping the bus ready,” Fitz replied. “She thinks they’re gonna make it.”

The three of them stood in silence, watching as Chuck began to stir. She would be coming out of her sleep any minute.

“I’ll talk to her,” Skye volunteered. Simmons smiled at her with gratitude, a little guilty that she was so keen to avoid Chuck in light of recent events, but also relieved that she would be spared Chuck’s anger at being shot with the Night Night pistol.

Suddenly, they heard the bus beginning to fire up and the engines start to roar.

“Are we leaving?” Skye asked, panicking. Simmons felt her chest begin to tighten in anticipation.

“I’ll check,” Fitz said, making his way to the lab to retrieve a communications set. The doors slid open, and he seized a handheld device on one of the tables, but as he turned to walk back out, he froze and a smile broke across his face. Skye and Simmons saw him and turned around to see Ward and Coulson jogging into the cargo hold, their forms blending in with the dark sky outside, and Ned in tow holding a flashlight that pieced through the night air.

“Oh my god!” Skye exclaimed, rushing forward and throwing her arms around Coulson. The agent seemed to be slightly uncomfortable with this blatant display of affection in the presence of so many others, but he hugged her back briefly before they pulled away from each other, mindful of their audience. Fitz and Simmons also smiled, but remained calm and collected.

They didn’t even notice that Chuck had emerged from her sleep, but Simmons did feel a _whoosh_ as the alive-again girl rushed past her, her shoes making a delicate _clank clank_ on the cargo hold floor. Her brown curls spread out like a banner behind her, and when Chuck halted just a foot in front of where Ned stood, Simmons felt her heart grow heavy as she watched the two of them, tears in Chuck’s eyes and the look of pain on both of their faces, obviously wanting to embrace each other but unable to do so. Instead, Chuck and Ned clasped their hands behind their backs as they usually did, imagining they were holding the hand of the other.

“I was worried,” Chuck said.

“I’m okay,” Ned replied, smiling sheepishly. They looked at each other in silence.

It was then that Simmons noticed the floating translucent man in a high-tech suit with glowing red eyes hovering above Lola, Coulson’s red convertible.

“Fitz,” Simmons whispered, tugging on Fitz’s sleeve. He looked in the direction of her stare and became transfixed by what they saw.

“Morley,” Coulson called. “Don’t touch Lola.” The man let out a low, robotic laugh that sent shivers down Simmons’ spine.

“I’d have to be corporeal to do that,” Morley replied, but remained a respectable distance away from the car. Ward appeared at Simmon’s side.

“Completely scientific,” he said. “No mutant powers or anything. He does that entirely with technology.” Fitz and Simmons turned their heads simultaneously to look at him in shock, their eyes wide and mouths parted slightly in disbelief. Ward looked back at them and raised an eyebrow. “Shame the hidden camera went out with the coms,” he continued. “Ned’s resurrection powers are really something.”

When they looked back to Lola, the figure had disappeared.

***

The team did not reconvene until May had landed the bus a safe distance from the Hub, which turned out to be a couple thousand miles away. Coulson had shut himself in his office with Skye to work together locating Andrews’ personal files, which they soon learned were redacted and had to be extracted through some dishonest methods. They barely got any rest, but the others were able to get a few hours of relaxation… all except Ned, anyways.

Shortly before they touched down, Ned sat with Chuck in their makeshift cabin, each on their own cot facing each other in silence.

“You didn’t know he was in town?” Chuck asked. Ned shook his head.

“I haven’t seen him.”

“What if he was in the Pie Hole?”

“What if he blew up the Pie Hole?”

“Ned, that’s ridiculous. Centipede did that. Besides, he’s your father.”

“Yeah, but my father abandoned me when I was nine and we’ve just learned that he killed a man. He’s not exactly winning any parenting awards. Who’s to say he’s not working for them?”

A knock came at the door and Ward poked his head inside. “We’re landing in 20 minutes,” he said. “Coulson wants us all in the center once we’ve touched down.”

“Thanks, Ward,” Chuck said sweetly. Ward nodded and closed the door again.

Ned sighed and rubbed his hands together. “Could you just… I want to think some things over.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Chuck said, obviously a bit hurt but too considerate to let her feelings get in the way of Ned’s wishes. She stood up and wrapped her arms around herself, squeezing tightly and smiling. “That’s for you.”

When she had left, Ned covered his face with his hands as a childhood’s worth of pain and misery bubbled in his chest. All the years he had spent hating his father, all the letters he had written as a young boy, and all the running he had done to divorce himself from his past was finally racing up to meet him. He wondered if he would have known about his father if he had not become entangled with Centipede and SHIELD, and for a brief moment, he blamed them. He blamed Skye and Fitz and Simmons and May and Ward and even Coulson – but his anger could not last for long. It wasn’t their fault. They were trying to protect him, and he couldn’t ask for a more supportive team. Everything fell onto Centipede and Edward Edwards.

A soft knock sounded at the door, and Ned dropped his hands so they rest on his knees. “Come in,” he called. It was Skye, the hactivist and former waitress at his restaurant. They had barely spoken since he boarded the bus, and Ned wasn’t sure if he could trust her.

“We’re landing soon,” Skye said.

“Yeah, Ward came by earlier.”

Skye bit her lip. “Can I…?” She gestured to the cot beside Ned. He nodded and made a place for her to sit. As she sunk to the mattress next to him, she brushed a strand of hair from her face and clasped her hands together tightly.

“I read your files,” she said. “I know he never came back for you. I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t mad. What she had done was a massive invasion of his privacy – looking into his records, his logs from Longborough – but it was what she did, and her sympathy seemed to lighten the air around them, forming a protective shell that made Ned feel safer than before he had boarded the plane.

“Then you’ll know why I go by ‘Ned’ and not my full name.” His voice came out harsher than he intended, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“Edward Edwards Jr. is pretty funny.”

“It’s also my father’s name. I want nothing to do with him.”

Skye sighed and folded her legs beneath her on the cot.

“You know, I don’t know who my parents are… or were,” Skye continued. “I was left at an orphanage by a SHIELD agent when I was a baby.”

“I’m sorry,” Ned said, but Skye shook her head.

“I’m not here to make your pain seem irrelevant. It’s… well… my whole life I thought no one wanted me. I remember being… chucked around from foster home to foster home. I would stay for a few weeks, but they would always send me back, and I thought that no one cared.” She dropped her hands into her lap. “But then I discovered that wasn’t the case at all. Something happened when I was a baby that I still don’t fully understand… but SHIELD found out about it and ever since, they’ve been protecting me. They made sure I was never in the same place for long so whoever was responsible for hurting my parents could never touch me. What I’m trying to say is… I have a family. I’ve always had one. They’ve been watching me my whole life, and they’ve always been there. And now, being on this bus… it’s more than I could ask for.”

Ned nodded, unsure of how to respond. He felt an unexplainable warmth towards her, almost a sibling bond that had ceased to form between him and his half-brothers, despite their shared childhood trauma. With Skye, it was different. She looked at life differently, and it was her happiness rather than pain that made Ned feel like he was back at the Pie Hole, surrounded by the people he cared about most. Without a doubt, he still felt abandoned, but somehow, that abandonment seemed endurable for the first time since he was nine.

“My point is family doesn’t just have to be your parents,” Skye continued. “It’s whoever is looking out for you. People like Chuck… and now me and Coulson and everyone on this bus… if you’ll let us.”

Her words softened the icy cold ache Ned felt in his heart, and he smiled at her, hoping he could communicate his gratitude without words. Skye smiled back and begin to unfold her legs.

“I’d give you a hug,” she said, “but I think Chuck would die again if I did that.”


	13. Interlude 6

Coulson stared across his desk at Fitz and Simmons, who were eagerly gesturing at the screen on the wall behind them.

“As you can see,” Simmons explained, “Ned might be way more powerful than we originally thought.”

Coulson was glad he had insisted they meet in his office. The lab was open to anyone, and he was not quite sure if he was comfortable giving Ned access to Simmons’ lab results. He folded his hands together and placed them on his desk.

“Can you confirm this theory?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Simmons said, “but we’re working on it.”

“How, exactly?”

“Chuck called Emerson Cod while we were on mission,” Fitz said. “She’s having him track down her father.” Coulson nodded. Whatever Simmons knew, Fitz also knew.

“If I could just run a few tests or even talk to him,” Simmons continued, “I might have a more solid conclusion. Chuck’s an anomaly. Two subjects might be a coincidence, or it might be a pattern.”

Coulson stood, but made no movement to emerge from behind his desk. “Yes,” he simply said. “We’ll make sure we find Ms. Charles’ father. Now please, if you’ll just keep this under wraps for the time being. We land in twenty minutes. You’re dismissed.”

After Fitz and Simmons departed, Coulson sank back down into his desk chair. More powerful. He could be putting everyone on his bus at risk just by having Ned on board. How much did Centipede know about Ned’s abilities? Surely, if they knew what Simmons had found, there would be no stopping them from getting their hands on such a specimen as his current bus-guest, which made their lack of action seem strange. Could the Clairvoyant even see Ned? He was, after all, an actual embodiment of resurrection, something they knew their mysterious adversary could not access.

Coulson left his office and made his way to the cockpit, determined to put an end to all this wondering and theory that was buzzing about in his head.

“May,” he said. “I have a mission for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone! Just to let you know, it will be some time before the next chapter goes up. My beta reader and I are both in grad school and things are getting crazy! I hope you'll continue to check back on my fic and be patient as we both try to get through this busy semester!


	14. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team tries to track down Mr. Edwards. Fitzsimmons invents a new weapon. May goes on a secret mission. Ward and Coulson meet a strange person in the sewers beneath the Pie Hole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read!

All of the agents and Chuck and Ned gathered around the holotable in the command center, each one eager to get started.

Ned, of course, was nervous. His father had murdered a SHIELD agent, and for unknown reasons. As he wondered how the team would react, he shifted his weight from foot to foot and covered his mouth with his hand.

Coulson tapped a few icons on the table’s surface, causing a few text documents to appear and some fuzzy photographs of a man in a black coat and fedora.

“As you all know by now, Andrews was not killed by Centipede, as we originally thought,” he began. “Thanks to Ned, we know that his death was perpetrated by one Edward Edwards.” He gestured to one of the photographs. Ned tried to get a closer look at the image of his father, but nothing about it was recognizable. He felt the eyes of all the agents looking at him, but he tried to ignore it. Coulson nodded to Skye.

“After some digging,” she explained, “I found that SHIELD had tabs on Edwards about thirty-five years ago. They believed him to have possession of a possible 0-8-4, but he kept slipping their watch.”

“He’s gotta be good to do that,” Ward chimed in. Skye nodded.

“He is,” she continued. “The only reason SHIELD got whiff of him twenty years ago was because his wife died and her obituary listed him in the local paper. They didn’t find him in Coeur d’Coeurs, but an agent tracked him down again a few years later in a nearby town. He was at a magic show with his kids, but before the agent could get to him, Edwards… disappeared.”

Ned froze. He hadn’t known about all this information before. It made sense to him now why his father would drop him off at Longborough School so quickly and unexpectedly, why he would have another family and identity, and why he had abandoned his half-brothers, Maurice and Ralston.

What didn’t make sense is why his father would try to have a normal life in the first place when he had a… what did Skye call it?

“What’s an 0-8-4?” Ned asked.

“Object of unknown origin,” Simmons rattled off.

“It’s always something really bad,” Fitz added. “Dangerous. Like weapons, space crafts, energy sources…”

Ned saw Skye shifting uncomfortably, but didn’t draw attention to her.

“The last time we found one, it was embedded in the walls of a 500 year old Peruvian temple,” Simmons said excitedly.

“Yeah, it was really cool,” Fitz continued. “It had really interesting radionuclides and was fueled by Tesseract energy.”

“And it was alive.”

“Basically it was like one hundred nuclear bombs in one. But still cool.”

“Do we have any idea what this 0-8-4 was?” Ward interrupted, rendering Fitzsimmons silent. Coulson nodded and pulled up another picture. The team leaned over the table to look at it, most of them showing confusion on their faces.

“A pocket watch?” Ward asked.

“Not just any pocket watch,” Coulson said. “Edwards received in Egypt from a now-known dealer in alien artifacts.”

“Hey, my dad had one of those watches,” Chuck said.

The entire team looked at Chuck. The disbelief in the air was so palpable, Ned thought he could taste their surprise. It tasted like chocolate cake.

“What?” Coulson asked. Chuck shrugged.

“I’ve had it since he died.”

“Do you have it now?”

“No, it’s at my aunts’ house.”

The agents shifted their gaze to Coulson, who had rest his hands on the holotable, as if to steady himself.

“How did SHIELD not know about the other watch?” Skye asked.

“I don’t know,” Coulson replied. “But we should probably get a hold of those watches before someone else does.”

“What’s so special about them?” Chuck asked. “I mean… I’ve had my father’s since I was eight. It didn’t seem to be a weapon or piece of a space ship. Just a normal watch.”

“We’re not sure,” Coulson said. “All we know is what’s in these files and these files list Edwards’ watch as an 0-8-4. I think we should assume your father’s watch is also a possible 0-8-4.”

“What makes SHIELD think they’re 0-8-4s?” May asked, speaking for the first time. “Just because we know the dealer sells alien artifacts now doesn’t mean he did back then.”

“Yeah,” Fitz added. “We only found out about Asgardians a couple years ago. And I don’t think Professor Randolf went around leaving his stuff all over earth… other than that staff.”

“The files aren’t clear,” Coulson said. “But something about that watch made SHIELD want to get a hold of it.”

“Dwight Dixon was trying to get my father’s watch,” Chuck offered. “He stole it from me, but my aunt Lily… sorry, my mother… stole it back from him.”

“He must know something,” Ward said. “We should try to find him.”

“Well,” Chuck said, sheepishly. “There’s a problem with that.” She began to wring her hands together and the blood drained from her face. “You see, I tricked Ned into bringing my father back to life… permanently. Dwight was in the vicinity, so…”

“Can’t Ned just wake him up like he did Andrews?” Fitz asked.

“Standing right here,” Ned interrupted. “And yes, I could… I guess.”

“Good. Then we’ll go to Coeur d’Coeurs,” Coulson announced.

Ned felt a pit drop in his stomach. He hated Coeur d’Coeurs – it was filled with all his painful childhood memories. His mother’s death. His father’s abandonment. He stored all of those pains in his childhood home, the house now empty and rotting on the side of the road, encased with weeds and ivy. Boards covered the windows and doors, blocking the sunlight just as Ned sought to block his past from his current life. Now, standing in the command center, he felt his mouth go dry and the anger he felt baking pies alone at his boarding school formed a lump in his throat. He remembered the letters, countless letters he’d written as a boy, begging himself to never forget what his father did to him. Well, he hadn’t forgotten, but he’d never been keen on sharing it with the whole world, and it looked like SHIELD would be ripping the boards off of the windows to his past, illuminating everything he had spent so many years trying to avoid.

“In that case, we’d better try to find Dwight’s watch too,” Chuck said. The agents again turned their heads so they were staring at her.

“There are three?” Ward asked, his eyebrows raising in disbelief.

“Are there any more?” May added, her face intensely serious. Chuck shook her head.

“No, my dad said there were only the three… one for him and each of his friends.”

“Good,” Coulson said, shoving his hands in his pants pockets. “We’ll rest here for a couple hours. Refuel. Then we’re bound for Coeur d’Coeurs. Now, get some rest… we have a long few days ahead of us and we’ll all need our energy. You’re dismissed.”

Everyone nodded and began to disperse, but Ned remained rooted to the spot. Chuck tried to get him to join her in the lounge, but he refused her offers. “I’ll be there soon,” he promised. “I have to talk to Coulson about something.”

He waited until Coulson had retreated into his office before he knocked.

“Yes?” the agent called. Ned cautiously passed through the doorway, careful to shut the door completely behind him. He was feeling tense and immeasurably guilty, hating the way the knowledge he gained from SHIELD was holed up in his mind like a mystical secret. Coulson looked puzzled as Ned hunched over like he wanted to confide in him.

“I need to tell you something,” Ned said. Coulson raised an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

“Something Fury told me back at the Hub.” He sat in the chair in front of Coulson’s desk, gripping his knees in his hands. He didn’t know why he hadn’t shared this information with the team in the command center or even right away after returning from the Hub. Maybe he was scared, or maybe he was too distracted by the news of his father. But now he needed to get it off his chest.

“What is it?” Coulson asked, slightly impatient.

“Those women, the redheads and blondes that have been all been killed by Centipede.”

“He told you about that.”

“Yes, but… you know why Centipede killed them, right?”

Coulson shifted in his chair. “No,” he said, obviously uncomfortable that he had to admit his shortcomings. “Do you?” Ned took a deep breath.

“What do you know about the Phoenix force?”

***

As they spent the next few hours flying to Coeur d’Coeurs, Fitz and Simmons remained in the lab, awake with adrenaline. The former was toying with new ideas on the holotable for a delivery mechanism to a serum Simmons was experimenting with, one designed to temporarily lock a person’s energy in their body.

“I thought it might be useful in case one of us is around when someone breaks Ned’s proximity rule,” Simmons said. “I must admit, it will cause some muscle pain, what with being nearly paralyzed and all, but it’s only temporary… a few minutes at most. But I figure a few minutes’ discomfort is a small price for immunity from Ned’s… ability.”

“It’s a good idea,” Fitz told her. “Especially since you came up with that theory about his powers being greater than we thought.”

“I wouldn’t have thought of it if you hadn’t said you wished you could be in the room when he resurrected Andrews.”

“What, you thought I’d be made dead?”

“No, it’s just… you got me thinking. This serum will prevent Ned’s power from borrowing enough of our body’s energy to resurrect someone.” She walked to stand next to Fitz by the holotable. “Think of it. Ned needs to borrow someone else’s life force to wake someone up, right? Well, we are constantly using energy in our biological processes, which is sort of like an open door to our bodies. If we could close that door for a few minutes, we’d be safe!”

“I know, Simmons. You told me this all before.”

“I just wish I knew what was making him do that.”

Fitz looked at her. “You know, you could always just ask him for a tissue sample.”

“That would be rude, Fitz. Plus, who knows what the Hub medics did to him.”

“He’d understand.” Fitz manipulated a holographic cylinder in the air, making waving motions with his hands to magnify one end of the shape. “What are we going to call this thing?”

“Neuromuscular paralytic dart.”

“That’s boring. I was thinking something like the Impervious Pistol.”

***

They didn’t land directly into Coeur d’Coeurs. A large, black plane descending into a town of less than five thousand people would certainly draw unwanted attention.

As soon as they touched down, May took the SUV and left.

“Where is May going?” Ward asked, watching her drive off from the balcony above the cargo hold. Coulson looked up at him from where he was standing next to the red convertible.

“I’ve given her a separate mission,” he replied. Ward folded his arms and tried to act nonchalant.

“She didn’t say anything to me.”

“I wouldn’t expect her to.”

Ward nodded and started to retreat back into the bus. Since Coulson had found out about them, that he and May had been sleeping together (or rather, they had slept together -- briefly), Ward had felt as if Coulson mistrusted him – if only just slightly. It wasn’t that Coulson treated him any differently, but something in his commanding officer’s eyes made Ward feel guilty every time they crossed paths, causing a deep ache to form in his chest that threatened to compromise him mentally. It wasn’t shame and it wasn’t regret. It was that Coulson doubted him.

After the train job, before Skye had been shot and everything hung in the balance, Coulson had threatened him. _What you're doing is against protocol, so if you endanger an operation or if anyone gets hurt, I'll reassign you to Barrow, Alaska, and you'll spend the rest of your years pulling the night shift guarding Blonsky's cryo-cell._ The words rang clearly in Ward’s head so loudly it gave him a headache. Citing broken protocol, feeling the need to invoke a threat – those things told Ward that Coulson’s faith in him had waned. It was unsettling, as if a hole had formed in his chest, and Ward often found himself aching with the need for his team to trust him. He _needed_ their trust.

Then Lorelei had come… everything was exposed. He didn’t love May, but he needed her to at least be on his side. Their current rift was causing his stomach to turn, and they had avoided each other’s company ever since Skye’s recovery. This rift, this break in the team… it was what Coulson thought would happen. And it was starting to feel dangerous. Coulson thought Ward could endanger them, perhaps knowingly endanger anyone, and the thought brought back memories of staring down a black hole into a watery abyss, his name echoing from the lips of a young boy.

He ignored the ache in his chest and head to his cabin to prepare for his next mission.

***

May parked the SUV in an alley exactly one mile west from the Pie Hole.

Some lights and noises of clanking dishes and laughing patrons emitted from a dim sum restaurant, and May rolled her eyes when she saw some of the waitresses dressed in ridiculous outfits pushing tiny carts from table to table. Dinner hours were just beginning, and she hoped her target hadn’t decided to leave the office early.

The stairs were old and they creaked as May tried to creep up them, so she resorted to walking with her body pressed against the wall, her feet careful to avoid stepping on the center of each stair. Her gun felt cool in her hand, and she let the sensation wash over her, calming her heartbeat as she controlled her breathing. _In. Out. Calm._ Her senses heightened, and May found herself listening to every sound and smelling every aroma in the space around her – the gentle waft of oil from the dim sum below, the light patter of footfalls in the offices down the hall. Her fingertips brushed the rough grains of the wall paneling as her muscles relaxed while still remaining ready to spring into action.

She heard a door close and the jingling of some keys as they tried to find their place in the lock.

Not wanting to miss her chance, May dashed forward and caught her target by the back of the neck, using her momentum to push him against the door, which easily fell open. She kept her balance, but her target tumbled to the floor, creating a loud thud that threatened to attract attention; she hastily closed the door behind her with her foot.

“What the hell?” Emerson Cod yelled, reaching for his gun in his side holster. May easily kicked the weapon away and flipped her target onto his back, holding her own night-night gun to his forehead.

“Listen closely,” she said. “I’m here to help you.”

“Like hell you are!”

“I’m with SHIELD.”

“Who?”

May took one hand off of her gun to reach into her pocket and pull out her badge. She showed it to the private investigator who sighed heavily. “This is about the Frost case, isn’t it?” he said. May tucked her badge back in her pocket and pulled the gun away from Emerson’s head.

“No,” she said simply. “I need everything you’ve found on Charles Charles.”

Emerson’s face twisted in confusion. “Dead Girl’s dad? Why?”

“You know why.” She offered a hand to the private investigator, who gratefully used it to help him rise from the floor. He brushed his pants and straightened his suit jacket.

“Could have just knocked like a sane person,” he said. May placed her gun in her holster.

“Your records, please.”

Emerson sighed again. “I haven’t found much,” he admitted. “Chuck only just called me yesterday.”

Though her face didn’t show it, May was disappointed and annoyed. She gestured to Emerson’s desk. “Do you keep your computer in there?” she asked. Emerson laughed as if she had told a joke.

“Only computer I got is taking up space on the floor.” He gestured to the corner of his office, where a large, boxy monitor lay covered in dust next to a decrepit keyboard and ancient-looking tower. May raised an eyebrow.

“You’re a private investigator and you don’t use a computer?” she asked. Emerson shrugged.

“I’ve solved plenty of cases without it.”

May turned and opened the door. “Grab your hat,” she said. “We’ve got work to do.”

***

Coulson and Ward sat side-by-side in the red convertible, leaving the others behind to monitor communications while they explored the ruins of the Pie Hole. He doubted they’d find any evidence of Edwards’ presence, but he didn’t want to leave this stone unturned. It was the first logical place to begin, and Coulson wanted to sweep the area to make sure no lingering Centipede soldiers were nearby before launching his investigation. If they knew what he knew, this would be the first place they’d be too, and he couldn’t let them get a hold of Ned.

Ward was just worried about keeping his hands off of Lola’s dashboard.

As they pulled up to the Pie Hole, they saw May in the SUV driving past, and Ward looked curiously at Coulson, wanting to ask what was going on without seeming overly-attached. Coulson parked Lola near the ruins.

“She’s looking for Charles Charles,” Coulson said after a pause. Ward tried to act nonchalant.

“I wasn’t wondering-“

“Yes you were, and it was wrong of me to keep it from you. You’re part of the team. You should know these things.”

Ward felt a surge of confidence, like a kid who had been told his parents were wrong. “I appreciate your confidence in me, sir.”

Coulson turned to look at him, though the black sunglasses made discerning his facial expressions difficult. “Listen, if what Fitzsimmons says is true, we need all possible information on Ned’s powers. If our team is in danger from him, I’d like to know what we’re up against.”

Ward nodded. “I completely agree, sir.”

“Now, if Morley gave Centipede access to our index, they’ll have figured out there are no other persons capable of resurrection… at least to SHIELD’s knowledge. My best guess is they’ll be after Ned again.”

“Do you think they know about the pocket watch? They might be after it if they know it is connected to Ned’s father.” He drummed his fingers on his thigh.

“I’m not sure, but we’ll have to assume they do for safety’s sake.”

Ward nodded and followed Coulson’s lead as the commanding officer stepped out of his car and straightened his tie. A few passersby in light jackets walked by and eyed them suspiciously, so Ward tried to act casually in case they had noticed his military vest. _Bomb expert,_ he would say. _Gathering more evidence for the insurance claim._ The two agents slipped under the yellow tape and walked into the black skeleton of the restaurant, glass and debris crunching under their feet.

“Wow,” Ward said. “Centipede really knows their bombs.” He kicked a blackened tile with the toe of his boot. Coulson picked up what looked like a part of a bar stool, looking around for something. Ward knew not what.

“I don’t think anything’s here,” he said, dropping the stool. Ward looked around the enormous husk of a jukebox.

“Shame,” he said, tapping the burnt shell with his fingers. Coulson nodded and looked at the floor, pointing to a broken record.

“Fats Domino,” he said. Ward gave him a curious look. “Nevermind.”

They continued to look through the remains of the restaurant, turning over tiles and pushing through piles of rubbish. Ward was beginning to think the Pie Hole was a dead end when they heard a loud _clank_ echoing from the back of the restaurant.

“Shhh!” Coulson said, motioning with his hand. “Did you hear that?”

“What?”

The agents fell silent. Ward carefully drew his gun and Coulson did the same.

Suddenly, there was the sound of running footsteps from the back of the Pie Hole, and Ward made a mad dash, launching his body over the remains of the front counter and sliding through the ruined kitchen, clanking through ceramic and pieces of wood and kicking up fine clouds of dust. He coughed as he struggled to listen for the footsteps.

When Ward pushed through the makeshift plywood board that served as a temporary door to the back alley, his quarry had disappeared. Frantically, he looked around for a sign when he saw an uncovered manhole just beneath the dumpster.

“He’s gone into the sewers!” Ward called to Coulson before slipping into the small opening in the street and awkwardly clambering down the service ladder into the sewers below. His heart was pounding with the rush of adrenaline and he began to feel that familiar thrill of the chase take over him as he splashed through the puddles below the street.

But the underground tunnels were a maze, and soon, Ward began to realize how fruitless his efforts were becoming. The footfalls of his prey echoed throughout the sewers, making pinpointing a location nearly impossible. A splash here, a light tapping noise there… Ward ceased running and looked around him, seeing nothing but a tangle of passageways. He bit his lower lip and struggled to ignore the stench of rats and black sludge that was currently assaulting his nose. How would he find anyone in _this_?

“I think I’ve lost him,” Ward said, relaying the info over his communications system.

“See if you can find him,” Coulson said through his earpiece. “I’ll follow you. Fitz, Skye, pull up some maps of the sewer system down here. We’re going to need them if we’re ever going to get out.”

“Right,” they heard Fitz say.

A shadow moved and Ward tore after it, gripping his gun tightly in his hands and readying himself to fire. He rounded a corner to another series of tunnels, but he heard a loud clank that sent him running yet again. When he finally found his prey, he was hanging from another service ladder and holding a sizzling electrical wire in one hand.

“Don’t come any closer or I’ll drop it!” The man was filthy and wore oversized goggles that pushed back his wild black hair. Ward raised his gun.

“Put the wire down!”

“If I do, you’ll fry.”

Ward quickly glanced down to see that the man was right. He was standing in a puddle of water. If that wire hit the ground, Ward would be killed almost instantly. He lowered his gun.

“I just want to talk,” he said. “That’s all.” The man didn’t seem convinced, so Ward tossed his gun into the tunnel behind him. His heart was racing and he felt his skin begin to prickle with sweat as he and the man stared at each other for what seemed like hours, one holding a sparking tangle of wires and the other wondering if the tunnel was small enough that he could brace himself against the walls without touching the ground. But then how would he get out? He was in the midst of forming an elaborate strategy when the man finally decided to move down the ladder and begin shutting down the electricity that enlivened his wire.

“The block above us will have no power for about an hour,” he said. “But they’ll live.” The man sloshed through the water, sending tiny waves over Ward’s shoes. “Now… what do you want?”

“My name is Agent Grant Ward. I’m with SHIELD.”

“Who?”

“Government,” he said simply, though he wasn’t entirely comfortable with that explanation. The man approached him cautiously, reminding him of a skittish horse, and, to Ward’s surprise, the man leaned in and inhaled deeply through his nose.

“Sodium. Cotton. Leather.” Another sniff. “Orange, sage, lemon.”

“That’s my deodorant.”

“Copper. Gunpowder.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Ward said, impatient. “Who are you?” The man pulled his goggles off so they hung around his neck.

“Don’t you know?” he asked. “You’re the one chasing me.”

“Just answer the question.”

“Oscar Vibenius. Olfactory expert.” He gave a slight nod of the head in greeting.

“What were you doing at the Pie Hole?”

The man crossed his arms, his jumpsuit making a swishing noise. “I go where I please.” Ward took an intimidating step forward, causing Vibenius to jump backwards. “Okay, okay, I was smelling for clues!”

“What sort of clues?”

“To see if I could locate Miss Charlotte Charles. She’s a friend of mine and I haven’t seen her since the Pie Hole was bombed.”

Ward froze. “You know Chuck?”

Vibenius tilted his head. “ _You_ know Chuck?”

Ward put his hands on his hips. “Were you there when the bomb went off?”

“Well, not right there. But I was around.”

Ward tapped his earpiece. “Skye, Fitz, get me out of here. I have someone Coulson should meet.”

***

Much to Emerson’s horror, May had stolen a laptop from an unsuspecting businessman at the Dim Sum restaurant.

“What the _hell_ are you doing?” Emerson exclaimed as May tossed the laptop bag into his lap.

“You don’t have a computer,” she said plainly. “We can’t do what we’re going to do in a public library.”

“What exactly is that?”

May responded with an eye roll.

Emerson sighed. “You could have at least swiped some pork buns.”

As they drove away from the Dim Sum restaurant, they passed Coulson and Ward in the red convertible, but May made no motion of recognition. She needed to place some distance between them to avoid getting tangled up in their affairs. Not to mention she had just “borrowed” someone’s laptop and needed to find a place with open wi-fi.

“Where’s the nearest coffee shop with open internet?” May asked, turning a corner a little too sharply. Emerson braced himself on the dashboard.

“A couple blocks from here,” he replied. “Explain to me why you need my help on this? It seems like you’ve got everything under control.”

“I can track down Mr. Charles, but in case I need another pair of hands, you’re all I’ve got.”

The SUV pulled into a parking space in front of a quiet little café with yellow lights and elegant metal furniture lining the sidewalk. May grabbed the laptop case and exited the vehicle immediately, leaving Emerson to follow behind like an obedient puppy.

“We’re gonna get caught,” he whispered. May glared at him.

“Just act natural,” she said, pushing open the door to the café. A smiling girl in a red apron and braids greeted them upon their arrival.

“What can I get you?” she asked. May quickly glanced over the menu hanging behind the counter.

“Tea,” she said simply. Then, gesturing to Emerson, “He’ll pay.”

Emerson scowled and ordered a black coffee, regretfully handing the barista a few bills from his wallet as May sank down into a booth away from the café windows. She ran her hands along the smooth leather of the laptop case, briefly wishing that she was back aboard the bus. The team needed her. They were tracking someone far more dangerous than Charles Charles and they only had Ward and Coulson trained to handle a situation if it turned nasty. Even Skye could have handled this mission better, with her special set of skills – but Coulson had specifically requested May to do this, and whatever Coulson asked, May was always prepared to do. When Emerson arrived with their drinks, she pulled the laptop from its case and flipped it open with haste.

“Here,” Emerson said, angrily dropping her tea on the table. May ignored the beverage and began to tentatively tap on the keyboard as he grumpily slid into the booth across from her.

“What are you doing?” he asked after a few moments. May did not look up from the screen.

“Locating any credit card information attributed to Charles Charles.”

“Wait a minute… are you…” he lowered his voice and leaned forward over the table. “Are you _hacking_?”

May looked up at him and simply glared, becoming more irritated by the minute. Her hacking skills were limited, but she could do a basic credit card search, and she didn’t appreciate his disapproving looks from across the booth. Her eyes caused Emerson to lean back and nervously look around the café. The table away from the windows was making more sense now.

After a few more moments, he attempted to speak to her again. “You think he’d use his real name?” he asked, more judgmental than curious.

“I don’t see why not.”

Emerson reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a child’s notebook, covered in colorful stickers and loose pages sticking out between the purple covers. He dropped it on the table with a _slap._

May looked up at him without moving her head. “What is that?” she asked.

“Dead Girl’s diary from when she was eight,” Emerson replied. “It has all the places she and her dad wanted to go before he died. We can use it to narrow your search.”

***

Coulson wouldn’t let Vibenius in the car, so they stood in the back alley to conduct their interview. Ward crossed his arms across his chest and nodded to Coulson, affirming that Skye and Fitz were recording from over the earpieces.

“Ward tells me you were at the Pie Hole bombing,” Coulson began. Vibenius shook his head.

“Not inside it, obviously, but I was underground. I spend most of my time gathering scents. I have this theory, you see, that we can only really appreciate the truly pleasant aromas of earth if we are exposed to the absolute worst-“

“Can you get to the point, please?”

Vibenius shuffled his feet. “When I heard the bomb, I came up and saw everyone gathered around the outside of the restaurant. That’s all.”

“Did you happen to notice anyone unusual there?” Ward asked. “Maybe a man in a black coat and black hat?”

Vibenius scratched his head, causing dirt to fall onto his shoulder. “There were a lot of guys in black that night.”

Coulson pulled a smart phone from his pocket and began to pull up images from SHIELD’s database. “These are from an agent’s personal files, taken a few weeks before the bombing,” he said, holding the screen up for Vibenius to see. “Does he look familiar to you?” Vibenius squinted his eyes.

“Not particularly. Lots of people wear black coats.”

“Why don’t you just tell us what you saw?” Ward suggested, wanted to speed the conversation along. “Maybe something will come back to you.” He uncomfortably curled his toes inside his wet socks. _Should have worn the other pair of boots,_ he thought, wishing they could just bring Vibenius back to the bus so they could have all the time they needed to gather their desired information. But Coulson insisted they stay, and the faster they finished the interview, the faster they could take further action. And change his socks.

“Well,” Vibenius began, “I didn’t really _see_ anything. But I smelled everything.”

Coulson and Ward looked at each other, the former almost in disbelief over Vibenius’ obsession with smell and the latter running thin on patience.

“Tell us what you know,” Coulson said at last, shoving his hands in his pants pockets.

Vibenius closed his eyes, as if recalling a vivid memory. “I came up from the sewers and everything was in smoke,” he began. “I went around to the front of the building to see if the Pie Maker and Miss Charles were alright, but I couldn’t quite get to them. There was a crowd, you see, and one man… kind of like this guy here… took Ned away from the scene.”

“Yes,” Coulson said. “We know about that.”

“Tell us what you smelled,” Ward ventured, hoping to lead the witness down a more productive path. Vibenius nodded and inhaled deeply, as if, in his mind, he had transported himself back to that night.

“Concrete. Black Powder. Sulfur,” he said. “Ammonia. Cordite.”

“All typical bomb smells,” Ward whispered. Coulson nodded.

“Salt. Copper. Iron.”

“Probably from Ned’s injuries.”

“Wool. Plastic. Down. Felt. Polyester.”

“People’s coats?”

“One man,” Vibenius said suddenly, without opening his eyes. “One man didn’t smell right.” Ward raised an eyebrow.

“How do you mean?” Coulson asked, suddenly very interested. Vibenius opened his eyes to look at him and made some motions with his hands, as if to pluck the right words out of the air.

“He smelled like… death.”

“You sure it wasn’t Miss Charles? I understand her cellular structure is particularly unique. Maybe you were smelling that.”

“No,” Vibenius said, confidently. “It was not Miss Charles. I have smelled her before.” Ward shifted uncomfortably. “This smell was the same, but it was different. It was… not natural.”

Coulson and Ward looked at each other. “I think we have people who can work with that,” Coulson said with a smile.


	15. Interlude 7

The woman in the flower dress perused the files from SHIELD’s index on her tablet. Dismayed, she was beginning to think that she had wasted her time and money on the Ghost’s services. Nothing in these records was helpful.

Until she came to one entry dated more than thirty years ago. It would have scarcely attracted her attention if she hadn’t been looking for it.

_Edward Edwards  
Date of Birth: November 24, 1957  
Last known location: Coeur d’Coeurs, Papen County, Massachusetts  
Family: wife, deceased; son, Edward Edwards Jr. (Ned), non-threat  
Known Abilities: None  
Other Notes: Suspected of possession, 0-8-4  
SHIELD custody: Negative _

“Well, well, Ned,” the woman said, smiling to herself. “Looks like a family reunion is long overdue.”

She flipped through the files from SHIELD’s database on Ned, looking to compare the father and son profiles side-by-side. It was then that she spotted another file that didn’t match any of the others.

When she opened it, she smiled again. “At last,” she said. “Something within our reach.”


	16. The Lab

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz and Simmons do more science. Skye and Ward find some interesting files in Fury's database.

Fitz fiddled with some plastic tubing as Simmons completed the finishing touches on an improvised plastic chamber suspended from the ceiling by strips of duct tape.

“We can’t puncture the chamber,” she said when Chuck eyed her skeptically. “And we don’t have enough piping to make a real one.”

“What exactly are we doing again?” Chuck asked, her arms nervously crossed over her chest as Ned sat on a lab stool behind her. Coulson’s run-in with Vibenius had not left her feeling at ease, and her skin began to warm with embarrassment. She felt betrayed that her friend had revealed her strange scent. It was personal, like her fingerprint or her choice in bath soap, something that wasn’t necessarily secret but not something she wanted advertised to the world. While she wanted to help the agents, Chuck couldn’t help but feel a little anxious now that the focus was so firmly revolving around her and not Ned.

“We’re capturing your scent,” Fitz replied. “This device is based off of forensic technology.”

“Basically, it takes a snapshot of all your odors,” Simmons continued. “It sends them through this plastic tubing into this box here.” She pointed to a white, geometric container which didn’t look like a box so much as a twenty-sided Rubic’s Cube. “Then it records the data and sends it to our computer here.” She tapped the holotable. “We’ll be able to isolate the scent of decay in no time.”

“You don’t have to make it sound so morbid,” Chuck mumbled, though good-heartedly.

“After that, we’ll upload the data into the Golden Retrievers,” Fitz said, jiggling the Rubic’s Cube with some dexterity. Chuck raised an eyebrow.

“The what?” Ned asked.

“They’re little tracking drones that can locate just about anything we program them to. When they find their target they send the data back to the main computer here.”

“They glow,” Simmons added with a smile. “They’re really quite pretty.”

The lab doors opened with a _swoosh_ as Coulson made his way in to check on the progress. “How’s it coming?”

“We’re almost finished,” Fitz replied.

“Good. How far is the range on your tracking device?”

“If he’s in Papen County, we’ll know. But not much farther than that.”

“How can you be so sure it’s Ned’s father?” Chuck asked. “I mean, the Golden Retrievers might just sniff out Digby and some corpses from the cemetery. Ned’s dad isn’t alive-again… at least that we know of.” She looked at Ned, who shrugged… presumably in agreement.

“I’m willing to take that chance,” Coulson replied. “There are only a few beings who have the scent that you do: Ned’s dog, your father, and the man from the Pie Hole. Even if it isn’t Ned’s father, there’s something not natural going on with him.”

“Besides,” Fitz jumped in, “We can program the Retrievers to locate things that are both moving and emit your scent signature.”

“Corpses don’t move much,” Simmons added. Fitz smiled as if she had said something funny, but continued to work.

“Let me know when you’re finished,” Coulson said. He turned and walked out of the lab rather abruptly, leaving the three remaining people to exchange glances.

Chuck began to feel a tightness in her chest and her face growing hot. Since she had been on the bus, she had felt useless, possibly even a nuisance. Back home, she was the Alive-Again Avenger, swooping in to the morgue to offer Ned’s interviewees closure and finding clues that could crack open any one of Emerson’s cases. Without her, they would be almost helpless; but here, she was nothing. Everything was bigger and scarier than her suburban murders, and after being tranquilized by Agent Ward, Chuck was beginning to lose confidence in herself. Was she really that useless? Was she as useless in Papen County, only Ned was too polite to say anything against her? Worse yet, Coulson’s words had pierced through to her very humanity, and for the second time since her resurrection, Chuck began to question her right to existence.

“Is that what I am?” Chuck asked. “Not natural?”

Simmons’ face twisted into a look of sympathy. She set down all that she was doing and walked over to Chuck, capturing the alive-again girl’s hands in her own, still encased in rubber lab gloves.

“Of course not,” she said. Fitz rolled his eyes.

“He didn’t mean that,” Ned offered, his face looking pained and obviously upset that he couldn’t embrace Chuck and comfort her.

“Can you guys do that somewhere else?” Fitz said. “I’m trying to work.” He shifted uncomfortably and made pointed attempts to focus on his tech. Simmons scolded him with a “Shush!” and began to pat the back of Chuck’s hand reassuringly. Chuck felt a prickling sensation behind her eyes, and she shyly looked away as she tried to blink back tears.

“Oh, don’t cry!” Simmons said, almost in panic. Chuck looked up and smiled at her.

“I won’t. I promise.” But she wasn’t sure if she could hold herself to it.

“Listen, Coulson didn’t mean that,” Simmons continued. “He wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings or suggest you’re anything other than a real human being. He just meant that there’s someone else out there who owes his or her life to some supernatural occurrence.”

“I know, it’s just –“ Chuck faltered for words. “Ned’s got supernatural powers, and I’m supposed to be dead. It’s natural to stay dead after someone’s killed you, so what does that make me?”

“Completely human,” Ned offered, though weakly. Chuck looked behind her and tried to force a smile, but looking at him pained her. Their presence here was all due to him, and while Chuck had come to love her new friends, she wished she could go home to her aunts and her bees and her crime-solving days that made a difference in people’s lives. She couldn’t bear being cooped up in the bus with nothing to do to help. She was dead weight – literally – and the only thing worse than being dead was feeling dead.

A few moments of silence passed before anyone spoke again. “It makes you alive again,” Fitz jumped in, still annoyed. “You said it yourself a few days ago.”

“What’s Fitz is trying to say,” Simmons continued, “is that you’ve been given your life back. It might not be strictly ‘natural,’ but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.”

“I’m so useless here,” she said, sniffling. Simmons eagerly shook her head.

“No,” she said. “You’re not.”

“Yes, I am. Ward had to shoot me and all I’ve done is sit on this bus and take up space. I’ve done nothing and I’ve helped no one.”

“You have,” Simmons said warmly. “You’ve helped us.”

“How?”

Simmons briefly looked at Ned before resuming. “You’ve given us so much, Fitz and I.”

“But mostly Simmons,” Fitz interrupted.

“Those tissue samples you asked us to study,” Simmons continued, “they’re unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Just the opportunity to look at cells like yours helps us understand more about the world.”

Chuck heard Ned shift in his chair again. “Um…” he asked. “What samples?” But Simmons ignored him and kept talking.

“That’s one of the oaths we take as scientists, you see… to always be learning and always look at the world in new ways.”

“You might not be breaking into top-secret SHIELD facilities,” Fitz added, his voice a bit softer and gentle, “but that doesn’t mean you’re useless. Simmons and I don’t do the spy thing either, but we help the team by solving problems.”

“You see?” Simmons said. “Every bit of knowledge you give us is useful. And we are so grateful to you for that.”

Chuck smiled and nodded her head in agreement. Those words comforted her, sending a warming sensation through her arms and into her hands; but when it reached her fingers, she was consciously aware of Simmon’s gloves. The latex reminded her of the permanent divide between her and Ned, a life without touching and without warmth. A dozen kisses through a sheet of plastic, a stroll through the winter snow holding mittened hands… these things kept them safe, but were they shields or barriers?

As Simmons returned the smile and left her to continue assembling the plastic chamber, Chuck watched as she fell into an accustomed synchronization that existed between her and her lab partner. They worked on different projects, but they moved the same, creating works of art with their plastic and their machinery. These two were almost inseparable, always sitting close together in the lounge or engaged in deep conversation, finishing each other’s sentences in such a way that made Chuck think they must be psychically linked. Were Chuck and Ned like that?

She doubted it. Ned had been uncharacteristically pushing her away lately, and she had allowed him to do so.

 _Well,_ she thought. _If there are barriers between us, it’s high time I learned how to break through them._

“All done,” Fitz announced.

“Me too,” Simmons followed. They both looked to Chuck. “Ready?”

Chuck nodded and stepped into the plastic chamber.

***

May and Emerson pulled into a dingy motel parking lot in Quire County. To be honest, May thought she’d have to drive farther – a lot farther – but she was relieved, in part because she could return to the bus sooner, but also because Emerson Cod was starting to irritate her to the point of her considering using a dendrotoxin pistol on him.

For the entire hour-and-fifteen minute ride, Emerson had been shifting uncomfortably in the SUV’s passenger seat and drumming his fingers on the armrest. He once made a motion to turn on the radio when May glared at him, the look threatening enough for him to withdraw his hand and gaze out the window in grumpy silence.

He had fallen asleep when they had only a half hour left in the drive, his face resting on the glass of the passenger side door and the laptop hanging so loosely from his fingers that May thought he was bound to drop it on the floor. She rolled her eyes when she heard his snores and wished she had swiped one of Fitz’s noise dampener devices.

When she finally pulled into the Sleepy Time Motel, the sound of her car door closing jolted Emerson awake, causing the laptop to make a soft _thunk_ on the floor. He hastily tried to pick it up, and, seeing that his head had made a large, circle-shaped print on the window, clumsily attempted to swipe it with his fingers. Though as he perceived May walking into the front office, he abandoned the attempt and exited the car to tail after her.

She walked out seconds later with a key in hand.

“What’d you do?” Emerson asked. “You didn’t kill the guy, did you?”

“Desk was unattended,” she said simply. She drew her gun.

“Whoa, there,” Emerson said. “You really think that’s necessary?”

May ignored him and started walking down the row of green doors. She stopped when she reached 26.

“I’ll go in first,” she said. Emerson drew his gun.

“No way,” he replied, setting the laptop case on the ground. “I’ll go in, you cover me if needed. Let me talk to him before you get all punchy.”

“Fine.”

Emerson rapped his knuckles on the door. A rough voice came from inside the motel room. “Who is it?”

“Management,” Emerson replied.

“What do you want?”

“Could you open the door, please?”

“I said, ‘What do you want?’”

Emerson looked to May, obviously not anticipating such a refusal. May rolled her eyes and inserted the key into the lock, but it would not turn.

“What are you doing?” the voice called from the other side of the door. May sighed in frustration and opted to kick the door open instead, sending splinters flying everywhere. Emerson sighed and rushed into the room, intent to spare their target from her unusually rough methods, and he held his gun casually at his side, hoping the man wouldn’t perceive him as a threat.

The man inside was indeed frightened, but quick to react. He too had a firearm and began squeezing the trigger, forcing May to take cover behind the doorframe and Emerson to roll down on the floor on one side of the bed. May felt her heart racing as the bullets lodged themselves into the doorframe, just inches from her head, and she steadied her breath in preparation for action. The man fired three shots before May heard the sound of broken glass, and she peered around the frame to see he had smashed the window behind him and launched his body through the opening.

“He’s out the window!” Emerson called. May rushed into the motel room and, lithely, jumped out after him, rolling into a tangle of prickly bushes half-dead from neglect. When she untangled herself and dropped to the ground, she heard a _click_ and felt a firm pressure to the back of her head.

“Don’t move or I’ll shoot. You’re tracking me, so you must know I’m ex-military. Don’t think I won’t kill you.”

“Put the gun down and let’s talk,” May said. She felt the blood draining from her face and felt the heavy thud of her heart against her ribcage.

“You talk,” the man replied, pressing the barrel more firmly against her skull, “and tell me why I should let you go.”

***

Skye sat in her bunk, idly tapping away at the keys of her laptop as she waited for Fitzsimmons to finish profiling Chuck’s scent. The process was taking longer than expected: the human body had hundreds of smells, and the scientists had to manually isolate the particular one they needed for this mission.

Ward knocked on the doorframe and leaned against the wall.

“What’re you doing?” he asked casually. Skye didn’t look up at him.

“I had an idea,” she said simply. Ward came into her cabin and sat down on the bed beside her without asking. Skye felt her mattress sink a little with his weight and was suddenly very conscious of the fact that her supervising officer’s face was inches from her own. He was watching her from over her shoulder, his hand supporting his weight on the space just behind her.

“What kind of idea?” She could feel the warmth of his breath on her face.

“Simmons wanted DNA samples from Ned, right?” Skye began, trying to brush off Ward’s presence. “But she hasn’t asked for them yet.”

“Yeah, he’s a little wary of needles and the like,” Ward replied. “I think she was just being respectful of his phobias.”

“But SHIELD took some samples from Ned at the Hub. They ought to have them in their database by now.”

“Why would you hack into SHIELD and steal something we could easily obtain here?”

“Because once I get them, I can delete all of his files.”

“Then they wouldn’t have his information to track him down again. They’d have to start from scratch,” Ward said, nodding. Skye looked at him, and he looked right back at her. “You’re good.”

The space was awkward.

Skye busied herself with her hacking once more. “The only thing is I won’t be able to read the files. Too much science. I’ll have to send them to Simmons.”

“She’ll be thrilled.”

The tapping of the keys seemed to echo in her tiny cabin. How close was Ward to her, exactly?

“Okay, can you just… give me some space?” Skye asked. “I feel claustrophobic with you hovering like that.”

“Sorry,” Ward replied, pulling away from her and rising from his seat. Skye felt herself breathing easier, but she missed the closeness. As he began to walk from the cabin, Skye suddenly felt a slight tinge of regret, like she had unfairly pushed him away. His presumption was probably nothing. A sign of trust or familiarity. He was her supervising officer, after all.

Just as he reached the doorframe, Skye called him back. “I’m almost done,” she announced. Ward turned around and nodded, but he didn’t leave.

Suddenly, a blinking blue box appeared on her screen. Access Denied.

“That’s odd,” Skye said. Ward lifted an eyebrow in confusion. “There are extra layers of security blocking me from Ned’s files.”

“Can’t you bypass them?”

“Of course, but… I think these are Fury’s files.”

They looked at each other tensely, the silence hanging thickly in the air around them. If they deleted the files, Fury would know it was them. But on the other hand, why would Fury keep this information buried so deep? A dozen or more people had seen Ned back at the Hub.

After some time, Ward nodded. “Do it.”

With flying fingers, Skye began to forcefully extract the data, not caring whether or not all hell would break loose or Fury would send an assault team to neutralize them. Something wasn’t right, and she was intent to find out what it was the director wanted to keep hidden. As her keyboard made dozens of soft clicking noises, her computer screen began to become cluttered with information and she saw an array of files spread out before her, each labeled with Ned’s name and a stretch of numbers and codes that she didn’t understand. It was like looking into the Matrix and expecting Keanu Reeves to pop out and magically make them all readable. She transferred the documents to her hard drive, but as she was about to copy and delete the last file, something caught her eye. “What the…?”

“What?” Ward asked, leaning in once again. Skye pointed to a file on the screen.

“What do you suppose that is?” She opened the file as Ward sat beside her once again.

As a string of documents and pictures appeared across the screen, the two agents read in tense silence, their eyes gliding over the words and images and Skye’s fingers eagerly copying the document to her hard drive. Their brains could not grasp what they were reading. Everything was so uncannily similar, so familiar and yet so unlike anything they’d ever read before. After a few moments, they looked at each other.

“Oh my god,” Skye said. “We need to tell Coulson.”

***

Simmons gave a triumphant “Yes!” as she successfully isolated Chuck’s decay scent. Ned and Chuck had retreated to the lounge upstairs after she had finished scanning Chuck’s body, and now that Simmons was done with the meticulous process of mapping her odors, a diagram of the molecular profile of the chemicals hovered in the air above the holotable.

“Look, Fitz!” she said. “It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before!”

“Most things about these two we’ve never seen before.”

“How about this?” came a voice. Fitz and Simmons turned to see May sliding the body of a man wrapped in dirty, old bandages through the lab doors. A tall, black man carrying a laptop case stood behind her, his face conveying something between nervousness and impatience. The sight was odd, to say the least, and Simmons gave May a look of confusion as the latter rested her hands on her hips.

“How many times do I have to say no bodies while I’m in the lab!” Fitz said, jumping back in an almost girlish panic. But suddenly, the body moved, and Fitz screamed.

“Oh my god,” Simmons said, bending down to help the man. “Are you alright?”

“He’s fine,” May said, rather tersely. “This is Chuck’s father.”

“You didn’t have to drag me in here like a dog!” Charles said, rising to his feet. Fitzsimmons looked at May reproachfully.

“He resisted,” she said with a shrug, and began to depart for Coulson’s office. Emerson stood awkwardly in the doorway, looking around briefly at the lab before addressing the scientists directly.

“You guys all set in here?” he asked.

“I… guess,” Simmons replied. What was this man doing here?

“Excuse me, who are you, exactly?” Fitz asked.

“Emerson Cod, private investigator.”

“Oh. Fitz, he’s the one Skye was tracking that led us to Ned,” Simmons said, recognition illuminating her face like a light. Emerson stared at her and his pursed his lips.

“Hey, what do you mean ‘tracking?’” he asked. Fitz and Simmons looked at each other nervously, as if they had revealed a secret, and Fitz began to walk towards the door, pushing Emerson out of the way gently with his hands.

“Sorry, can’t talk,” he said quickly. “Got science to do!”

The lab doors closed, leaving Emerson standing in the cargo hold and having no idea where to go.

***

Skye and Ward sat in Coulson’s office, the former having just outlined what she had found on SHIELD’s database. Coulson twiddled his thumbs nervously, unsure of whether he was reacting against the information he had learned or the fact that SHIELD had withheld it from him.

He replayed the conversation in his head, with vivid detail.

_“Ned’s file was stored in a larger folder called ‘Resurrection’ in SHIELD’s database… top level security,” Skye said. “I had to break through a few firewalls. I think only Fury could see this stuff… like your own files about TAHITI. Ned’s information was the only thing in that folder except for this.”_

_She plopped her laptop down on Coulson’s desk. She had a document open, and under the SHIELD logo was the name Adam Warlock._

_“Adam Warlock was an experiment a few decades ago by a group of researchers to create the perfect human being,” Ward explained. “The name of the facility isn’t listed, but I’m guessing it’s either The World or something very much like it.”_

_“Anyway, Adam Warlock escaped, but his creators had… I dunno… exposed him to an alien artifact.”_

_“The artifact gave him god-like abilities, including the ability to raise the dead, extract the truth from any person, deflect attacks… he even had telekinesis.”_

_“This file doesn’t say what happened, but eventually the artifact disappeared and Adam with it.”_

_“Disappeared?” Coulson asked. Skye nodded._

_“Not just off-the-radar disappeared, but off-the-planet entirely,” she said. A pause followed her statement, emphasizing the gravity of the situation._

_“Adam’s age doesn’t fit right to be Ned’s father or brother or whatever,” Ward soon added. “But his abilities are strangely similar.”_

_“The facility managed to destroy all of Adam’s information, so SHIELD’s got no information on him other than what’s in this file, but there’s a picture of him.”_

_She pulled up an image of a man with white eyes and metallic gold hair and skin. It looked strangely like the glow that coursed through a corpse’s body as Ned brought it back to life._

The Phoenix force, this mysterious 0-8-4 and human experiment… how many things was SHIELD keeping hidden from their top-level agents? What clearance level would he have had to obtain to know about these things? He considered telling Ward and Skye about the Phoenix force, and for a moment, he even thought that this Warlock thing could be another manifestation of the Phoenix, but it didn’t fit the pattern of clones nor did it exhibit the same kind of powers. So, Coulson decided to keep the information to himself until he could more strongly figure out how everything was connected. _It_ must _be connected._

“Do you think Centipede knows about this object?” Skye asked, breaking the silence. Coulson looked at her.

“I don’t think so,” he replied. “Besides, if Centipede had found it, they wouldn’t need to hunt down Ned or anyone else with resurrection powers. This file doesn’t tell us anything about the location of this artifact, and even if Morley gave them this file when he gave them the index records, we’re still just looking for a couple of watches. Warlock’s 0-8-4 can still be anywhere.”

Ward leaned forward, as if he were going to divulge a secret. His eyes were dead set on Coulson, and his hands were placed firmly on the desk, as if for support.

“Or,” he suggested, speaking slowly and with a lowered voice, “it could be those pocket watches.”

Skye leaned in even closer. “It could be _inside_ one of those pocket watches.”

***

Upon hearing that her father was aboard the bus, Chuck raced down to the cargo hold with Ned following at some distance behind her. He was cautious… the last time he and Mr. Charles had met, their confrontation had been tense, to say the least; so, Ned decided to wait outside the lab, watching contently as Chuck threw her arms around her father’s neck, as if she felt no pain from his abandonment just a few months before. Ned smiled to himself and wished he had the same forgiveness in his heart that Chuck had in hers.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t dig himself out of the pit he had created when he was a boy, and every minute the team spent looking for his father was another minute that the vines of resentment squeezed tighter and tighter around his heart. He found himself so frustrated that, at the mere thought of Edward Edwards, he could hardly breathe.

“There you are,” came a voice. Ned turned to see Emerson Cod approaching him from the other side of the cargo hold. “Been looking for you for days.”

“Sorry,” Ned replied. “No phones.”

Emerson laughed sarcastically for a moment before his face fell into his characteristic apathy. “Sure there weren’t.”

“What are _you_ doing here?”

“Super Agent never dropped me off,” Emerson said.

“Does that mean you’re coming with us?”

“Coming with you where?”

“To find my father.”

Emerson stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. “Hell no,” he replied. “I got an earful of your daddy issues back when he was just gone. If you’re going out to find him, I don’t want to be around for your family reunion.” He looked down at his feet. “Besides, Penny’s coming for the weekend.”

“Of course. You should spend time with your daughter.”

Emerson sighed and looked back up at Ned. “Look, it isn’t that I don’t want to help you,” he explained. “But after so many years of not being around her… missing her grow up, her first steps and all that… it’s important that I be with her as much as I can. I never abandoned her, and I’m not going to start now that I just got her back.” He gave Ned a half-smile. “Besides, you got enough people here without me.”

Ned’s eyebrows knitted and he looked almost appalled. “Emerson, I don’t want you to think we left you out on purpose,” he said, his voice pleading.

“I know. And I don’t mind. I don’t fit here, anyway. SHIELD or whoever these wackos are… they’re not my kind of wackos.”

Ned looked back to the lab to see Simmons preparing a swab and a syringe for taking tissue samples. Emerson shrugged.

“Anyway,” he said, “I think I’ll keep an eye on Mr. Charles while you’re out. There’s something not right about him… apart from being alive-again, that is.”

***

Coulson made his way down to the lab, the information on Adam Warlock fresh in his mind. May had informed him of Mr. Charles’ arrival, but he avoided rushing downstairs right away. When he stormed into the lab, he kept his holster unsnapped just in case.

“Mr. Charles,” he said. “My name is Agent Coulson. Want to tell me why you attempted to shoot Agent May?”

The man with the bandaged face looked up. The whites of his eyes had gone yellow a long time ago, and the skin of his eyelids sagged grotesquely.

“She broke into my motel room,” Charles responded. Fitz and Simmons pointedly tried to look busy, avoiding the seemingly spontaneous interrogation that was occurring in their space. Coulson though he heard Fitz mumble, “Why is everything happening in here today?”

“Daddy, why were you even in there?” Chuck interrupted. “I thought you were going to Bangladesh or Prague or somewhere we had talked about when I was little.”

Simmons put a slide under a microscope and fiddled with the knobs.

“I couldn’t get a passport, pumpkin,” Charles replied, his voice instantly becoming softer when addressing his daughter. Coulson scoffed at him and Fitz rolled his eyes as he hurried from one end of the lab to the other.

“An ex-military man like you. I’m sure you could have come up with something,” Coulson retorted.

“Well, with a face like this, I’m a bit more susceptible to random airport checks.” Coulson saw Simmons nod her head in agreement.

“A face like what, exactly?” he asked, obviously missing something.

The man began to unwrap his bandages, starting at the top of his head and slowly working his way down. As the gauzy material began to fall away from his face, Coulson perceived the rotten, unsettlingly gray-brown skin beneath, run through with lines of wrinkles and holes where his flesh had rot away. His lips were a deep purplish black, hiding teeth that reminded Coulson of old, cracked tombstones overgrown with dying tendrils of old vines. He smelled like decay, an ugly, pungent stench that filled the lab and seeped into Coulson’s clothes. From the corner of his eye, Coulson saw Fitz recoil, placing a hand over his mouth as if to keep himself from vomiting. But Mr. Charles noticed and was not afraid to call him out.

“I’d like to see what you look like after being dead for 20 years.”

“Sorry, Daddy,” Chuck said, placing a hand on his arm. Charles immediately softened.

“It’s not your fault, honey.”

Simmons began to toy with the data input on the holotable, her movements exaggerated in an attempt to demonstrate how _not_ involved she was in the conversation.

“Mr. Charles,” Coulson interrupted, glaring at Simmons briefly, “tell me why you ran in the first place.”

“Like I said, your agent broke into my motel room.”

“And for no other reason?”

“No. Except…” he looked at Chuck and then back to Coulson. “You know what my daughter is… and what I am. How long before the rest of the government knows about us and puts Charlotte in a white room with needles?”

Coulson rocked back and forth on his heels with impatience. “We have bigger problems than you and your daughter right now.”

Charles looked confused, an expression that further contorted his already disturbingly altered face. He was grotesque, yes, but here was yet another living (or undead) person with physical evidence of Ned’s powers. How many other beings could do this?

“Mr. Charles,” Coulson asked, “are you aware of a certain pocket watch, one of three given to you and your companions while touring in Egypt for the UN?” Charles nodded.

“Yeah, I kept it on me all the time… until I died.”

“I told you, Agent Coulson, my aunts have it now,” Chuck interrupted. Coulson held up a hand to silence her.

“I’m well aware of where it is,” he said. “My interest is in what’s in it.”

“What’s in it?” Charles mocked. “Gears, hands, a face. It’s a watch, not a Pandora’s Box.”

“You and I both know it isn’t just that.”

Charles fell silent, his black lips pushed together as if to prevent a flood of words from tumbling forth. Coulson watched as he seemed to deliberate, slowly picking the bandage off the floor and rewrapping it delicately around his head as if the material would hide him… protect him maybe, but from what, Coulson did not know.

“I’d rather talk about this without my daughter present,” Charles said after a time. Chuck pouted her lip.

“Daddy,” she protested. When she didn’t move and Coulson made no attempt to banish her from the lab, Charles sighed and continued.

“It’s true those pocket watches are no ordinary watches,” he began. “What they are exactly, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Coulson asked, more accusatory than he wanted to sound.

“Not really. Edwards told me they did something… something not natural. He said they were safe as long as we didn’t open them.”

“You mean open the actual body of the watch, not just the cover to the face?”

“Yes.”

Coulson crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows, not entirely sure he believed Charles Charles. He glanced over to see Fitz and Simmons had abandoned all pretense of looking busy and were now staring at Chuck’s father.

“I didn’t want to open it,” Charles continued. “After what happened to Edwards… I couldn’t. Plus, when Charlotte came, I realized how selfish it would be to do that to her.”

“Do what?” Coulson asked. Charles sighed.

“When Edwards opened the watch,” he said. “Something… strange happened. He went a little mad.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t see him for days. Weeks, really. I went over to see him but his wife said he wasn’t fit for company. They lived across the street from me, you know, and sometimes I could hear him screaming and shouting, but never anything coherent. Then, one day, it was simply over. Edwards knocked on my door and told me never to open the watch, and I never did. Though after coming back from the dead, I’m not so sure Ned’s powers and Edwards’ madness are unrelated.”

“Daddy,” Chuck scolded. “Don’t turn this on Ned. We don’t know if the two are related, and even if they are, Ned’s never gone mad, that I know of.”

Coulson nodded: in his heart, he knew they were connected: It couldn’t be coincidence that Ned’s father had an 0-8-4 and a son with supernatural abilities. He looked at his eavesdropping scientists. “Fitzsimmons,” Coulson said, startling them both, “have you found anything yet?”

“Just about,” Simmons replied. She began to make some motions above the holotable, causing a tangle of shapes to hover in midair. Charles Charles looked at the tech with wonder.

“These are Mr. Charles’ cells,” Simmons began. “As you can see, they exhibit signs of severe decomposition, yet somehow, they are still being sustained.”

“Just like Miss Charles’ cells,” Coulson said, more to check his own understanding than for the benefit of the group. Simmons nodded excitedly.

“Mr. Charles,” she said, looking to Chuck’s father, “Chuck says you died from… proximity to Ned’s touch.”

“That’s right,” Charles agreed.

“Just before you died, did you experience any ventricular strain or dyspnea?”

“What?”

“Shortness of breath?” Fitz translated. “Perhaps some tightness in your chest.”

“Yes,” Charles replied. “I thought I was having a heart attack.”

Simmons seemed to jump a bit in excitement. “I thought so!”

“What?” Coulson asked.

“It seemed that Ned’s touch can divert life energy from one person to another,” she explained. “After a minute, the body can no longer sustain having the life sucked out of it, so the person dies.”

“Of course there’s no way to safely test this,” Fitz said. He turned to Simmons. “Unless you do it on rats or something.”

“Ned’s probably not even aware that he’s doing it,” Simmons continued. “If he could learn to control his power-“

“He could pick and choose whose life energy he wanted to use,” Coulson finished. Simmons nodded, though with a bit of dismay at having her sentence finished for her at the most exciting part.

“Are you saying Ned stole my life and put it in someone else?” Charles asked.

“Not really stole,” Chuck said. “He just wanted to save his mother and he didn’t know what he was doing then. He still doesn’t really know what he’s doing.”

Coulson walked over to the screen at the back of the lab and began to pull up some files.

“That brings me to this,” he said. “Skye and Ward just informed me of this information before I came to the lab.” He enlarged a picture of a man with golden skin and white eyes. “This is Adam Warlock, science experiment by an unknown corporation. Skye found his file in SHIELD’s database, stored with their data on Ned.”

“Hey,” Chuck said, walking to the screen. “His skin. It’s the same color as when Ned touches someone.”

“Oh really?” Simmons asked in excitement, but Coulson ignored her.

“Warlock gained resurrection powers and other abilities after being exposed to an 0-8-4 a few decades ago.”

“0-8-4?” Charles asked.

“Object of unknown origin,” Fitz said. Simmons leaned in closer to read the screen.

“It says Adam’s disappeared… from the planet,” she said, her voice betraying her disbelief. Coulson nodded.

“And,” he said, “according to this file, without the 0-8-4.”

“So,” Fitz said, “if this 0-8-4 caused the resurrection powers-“

“Ned’s abilities could be the result of something else, like an alien virus or cosmic energy,” Simmons finished for him.

“That means,” Chuck continued, “if those watches are related to that missing 0-8-4…”

“Ned could be just as powerful as Adam Warlock,” Coulson finished. “He could be like a god and not even know it.”

***

 

 _Not even know it,_ Ned thought, What, he? A god? The thought was ridiculous. He, clumsy, shy, ordinary pie maker wielding cosmic forces. If he were a god, he should have known by now. What god could only bring the dead back to life for a measly minute without fatal consequences? What god couldn’t even touch the person he loved the most?

But the prospect of him being a god did not bother him so much as the suggestion that he was unwittingly stealing other people’s life energy and he could have controlled it if he had just done something, anything to learn more. Then again, did he _want_ to control whose life he drained? The thought made him feel guilty – guilty that he could target a specific person and essentially kill them simply by touching a dead thing with his finger. It was far easier to blame everything on chance.

“Hear that?” Emerson said, jokingly. “You’re a god.”

“Shut up,” Ned replied, a bit more terse than he intended. Emerson’s eyes widened.

“Look at you all high and mighty. What’re you gonna do, oh mighty smiter?”

“I’m going to my bunk.”

“You have a bunk?”

Ned left without another word.

***

Coulson spun around in surprise as he heard the lab doors open behind him.

“Zeus is having a hissy fit,” Emerson said. “Anything else you want to say about him, now’s your chance, ‘cuz he’s gone.”

“Oh no,” Simmons said, her face twisted in pain. “Is he alright?”

“He’ll bounce back,” Emerson replied. Coulson nodded and began pulling more files up on the screen.

“Fitzsimmons,” he asked, “these are Ned’s lab files that Skye was able to extract from the SHIELD database before wiping his record. I want you to go over them and be ready to report back to me upstairs in an hour.” He looked to Emerson. “Mr. Cod,” he said. But before he could go any further, Emerson held up a hand.

“I don’t want to get caught up in your secret government meetings,” he said. “I’ll take Charles here home and keep an eye on him while you… do what you do.”

Coulson nodded, half in agreement and half in gratitude. He didn’t know how many more guests he could take on the bus.

“I’ll have May give you a ride,” he said, watching in delight as both Charles and Emerson cringed. “Fitzsimmons, meet us in the control room in an hour and have your tracking drones ready. Mr. Cod-“ he extended his hand to the private investigator, “thank you for your services.”

“When can I expect my check to come in the mail?” Emerson asked, half sarcastically but secretly dead serious. Coulson smiled and put his hands in his pants pockets.

“We’ll be in touch,” he replied. With those words, he left the lab.

Emerson stared after the agent, a bit incredulous but also upset that he would most likely not be receiving any payment for all the work he’d done. He let his face fall into a look of irritation until he saw Agent May climbing down the staircase, car keys in hand.

“Guess that means I’m off,” he said, grasping Charles by the arm. Chuck threw her arms around her father, causing him to break contact with the private investigator.

“You be careful, daddy,” she said. Charles Charles embraced his daughter and planted a light kiss on her forehead.

“Don’t you worry,” he replied, “I’ll be just fine. You are the one that needs to be careful.”

Emerson and Charles then departed for the SUV, content to leave the bus and all its agents behind.


	17. Interlude 8

“Why can’t the Clairvoyant just tell us where these people are?” asked a man in a lab coat. His hair was thinning and his glasses sat uneasily on the bridge of his nose.

The woman in the flower dress grasped him firmly by the back of the neck and leaned in close so that her lips were brushing his ear. “Because,” she said, “something is blocking his vision.”

“That’s impossible,” the man replied, his proximity to the woman making his heart race and his palms sweat.

“Not so,” the woman answered. “Whatever brought Coulson back was also blocked from his sight. Something is also blocking him from seeing that Pie Maker and his deadbeat father.”

“How are we supposed to find Edwards?”

The woman stood and released her hold from the man’s neck. “Simple,” she said. “We wait for them to find him first.”


	18. Retrieved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz and Ned have a chat. May and Coulson find Edwards.

After uploading his coordinates to the system, Fitz deployed the Golden Retrievers, which launched up and out into the night sky like tiny golden comets streaking across the empty blackness above him.

Coulson had revealed everything to them at their latest meeting. The Phoenix Force. Adam Warlock. Ned’s father. Everything. Now, all of the team members knew as much as everyone else. It felt like a release, like letting out a breath he’d been holding in until his lungs burned. Finally, he was able to breathe out, and the sensation was refreshing.

As for the lab results, Fitz and Simmons had discovered everything about Ned’s biology was completely normal, except that his cells seemed to be imbued with a strange golden energy that uncannily resembled the properties of the aether, according to SHIELD files. Fitz and Simmons had quickly skimmed over some of Skye’s dishonestly obtained information about the aether, the cosmic viscous liquid that was responsible for the Dark Elves’ destruction of Greenwich a few months ago. Ned’s cells revealed a similar kind of substance was living inside him, something fluid and gold that was invisible on the surface. Knowing that made Fitz nervous, worrying that they may have another Malekith aboard their bus.

But for Fitz, it was not the knowledge that they were not alone in the universe that unnerved him. He had taken to Asgardians quite well, and though he had never met anyone from any of the other eight realms, he was comfortable with the knowledge of their existence.

But Asgardians could be fought. Chitauri could be defeated. Even the Centipede Super Soldiers had weaknesses. But how could someone stand against a god, or, worse yet, a force with no tangible body? What could they do against something that could split them apart atom from atom? He couldn’t just throw Agent Ward at it and expect to come out on top.

Simmons, of course, was fascinated by the scientific possibilities, and Fitz was too; but at what point did fascination become fear? When was it appropriate to just turn and run?

He remembered that Ned had been completely silent at the meeting.

Fitz wondered if Ned was another Donnie in the making, someone who had extraordinary things happening to him, things he couldn’t understand. Of course, Ned seemed to have Chuck, but the distance between the couple was increasing to the point where even Fitz could see the strain. It was terrifying, like he was looking at an image of himself years ago, alone and scared. At any moment, he knew Ned would collapse under all that loneliness. _I almost did,_ Fitz thought.

Fitz followed the others as they retreated back into the bus, hoping to catch a few minutes of sleep. This mission was wearing them hard, and they hardly had a moment’s rest. His limbs felt heavy, like they were made of lead or adamantium. When was the last time he’d had a break? A dull ache hung about his chest and his shoulders began to sag, as if he were carrying a great weight. Simmons wanted to check on the tracking programs once more, despite Fitz’s assurance that they would perform just fine; but instead of accompanying her to the lab, as he always did, he followed Ned to the lounge. Fitz felt himself blush slightly with embarrassment as he overheard Chuck and Ned having a tense conversation, and he pretended to be on his way to his cabin to avoid notice.

“Ned, just let me in,” Chuck was pleading in a hushed voice. “You don’t have to carry this burden on your own.”

“I tell you everything,” Ned replied.

“No, you don’t! I know all the facts, but you’ve been hiding your emotions from me. I just want to give you an emotional Heimlich and get all those feeling out before you explode.”

“But you can’t!” Ned said, silencing Chuck immediately. “We can never touch, never hug, never kiss without plastic wrap. My father killed a man and may have an alien artifact in his possession which may or may not be related to this touch of mine, which, as it turns out, could mean I’m some sort of phenomenal cosmic power. I’m terrified. I’m angry. I’m everything and nothing and you can’t fix that with a hug!”

Suddenly, Chuck caught Ned about the waist, enclosing him in a tight embrace with her cheek laying on his chest. In a panic, Ned immediately raised his arms to avoid touching her while Fitz watched everything by peeping through the windows of the command center. He felt like a stalker.

“What are you doing?” Ned asked, his voice laden with anger and fear.

“Giving you an emotional Heimlich.”

“Stop! I could touch you!”

Chuck pulled away and Ned jumped back from her.

“That was stupid,” he said. Even Fitz felt the punch of those words. Chuck pouted and crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’ll talk to you later,” she said, breezing past Ned into the interrogation chamber and slamming the door behind her. Fitz saw Ned cover his face with his hands and sink down in one of the white couches a few feet from the bar, his elbows resting on his knees.

Now was his chance.

Fitz quietly crept from around the command center and sat on a plush white chair across from him.

“Hey,” he said. Ned peeked through his fingers at him before dropping his hands completely.

“Hey.”

“Look, I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop.”

“It’s okay,” Ned replied before Fitz could finish. Fitz waved his hand.

“Listen,” he said, looking directly into Ned’s eyes. “You can’t push her away like that.”

Ned sighed. “I know.”

“No, you don’t,” Fitz continued. “You can’t make it alone.”

“Thanks for your confidence.”

“I mean it. Look, I don’t want to pry and I don’t want to assume, but I grew up without my dad around, too. It messed me up. I became a bit of a shut in, so that when I started at the academy, I was a bit of a loner. Hours in my room, tinkering with projects and mechanics and all that. Whenever I tried to talk to anyone, they’d look like I had just spoken Japanese. I don’t have super powers or anything, but having special abilities makes it so much easier to go bad.”

Ned tilted his head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Before Simmons, I was alone most of the time. If she hadn’t found me…” His words faltered, but he forced himself to recover. “She’s not an engineer, but I can tell her anything and she’ll always be on my team.” He leaned in a bit closer. “You need someone, even if it’s just one person, on your team.”

Ned looked as if he were to shoot back something snarky, but he seemed to reconsider, allowing his facial expression to soften. “I thought you guys were my team,” he said instead.

“That’s not what I meant.” He began to rise. “Now get some sleep, if you can. The retrievers should be back in no more than an hour or so.”

***

The woman in the flower dress watched a golden yellow orb blaze across the night sky and she knew at once that it was from SHIELD.

It travelled so fast that she almost missed it, hanging halfway out of the passenger side window of a silver sports car. But once she caught sight of it, and the direction it was going, she motioned for the driver to floor the gas pedal. They sped off down the darkened street, somewhat less filled with traffic on account of the hour, and she pressed the button to roll the window up. She didn’t want the breeze tussling her hair.

They had never really left Papen County since the bombing. True, they had fled the scene when SHIELD appeared, tearing off into the night with hell on their heels, but like a faithful canine, they returned to finish what they had started. The Clairvoyant had told them SHIELD would be back, and they were. One of the super soldiers had seen Coulson and his lap dog drive up to the Pie Hole, had heard them interviewing a key witness. He had told them about the orbs, where they would be and when they would show up. He was right about everything. 

They lost sight of it for almost fifteen minutes, and the turns of the street prevented them from following the orb directly. It was a maze of black pavement, winding its way between high buildings and hedges of perfect green bushes. But as they travelled away from the shops and the restaurants that lined the street, into the suburban residential neighborhoods with open skies and dainty little porch lights, she caught sight of it again as it came to rest over a multicolored house with dark raspberry trim. It simply hung in the air, unmoving, as if waiting to be let inside.

Raina did not want to wait.

The car pulled into the driveway under the cover of darkness, its headlights extinguished long before they arrived in Coeur d’Coeurs. Raina exited the vehicle and made her way to the front door of the house, her heels making a loud _click click_ that seemed to echo throughout the still neighborhood.

The golden orb descended so that it was in line with the first floor windows. Raina looked behind her to the car, where a man bearing a glowing chain of Centipede tech was emerging from the driver’s seat. She nodded to him as he approached, his boots making heavy clunking noises upon the wooden porch steps, and without a word, he forced open the door, sending splinters of wood flying through the front hall. The golden orb hastily rushed inside.

Raina stepped over the debris to be greeted by a musty odor, like the inside of an antique shop. She could not see a thing except for the glowing orb, which whizzed through the house looking like a firefly. It came to rest over a table, where it illuminated a delicate case open to reveal two silver pocket watches. Raina’s face twisted in confusion. Wasn’t she supposed to be retrieving a person? What did these watches have to do with the blocking of the Clairvoyants sight or the resurrection of their soldiers? But the orb seemed to be transfixed on these objects, and if SHIELD wanted them, then she wanted them. She reached out a hand and snapped up the case, causing the orb to whizz back through the open front door and into the night sky.

“We’re done here,” she said. But before she could turn around, she heard a distinctive _click clack_ behind her.

“No you’re not,” came a voice. The lights suddenly flipped on, and at once, Raina was repulsed by the piles of cages, trinkets, and bird taxidermy she saw strewn about before her. Slowly, she began to turn around, only to be greeted by the double barrel of a rifle, held by a skinny red-headed woman wearing a red eye patch.

“What are you doing in my house?” she asked in a gruff voice. Raina looked behind her to see another woman with dark black hair lifting her hand from the light switch. Raina smiled.

“Just borrowing something of yours that interests me very much,” she replied.

“That watch was Charlotte’s father’s,” the woman in the eye patch said. “Put the case down.”

Raina smiled again and slipped the case into her jacket pocket. She nodded once.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed hold of the rifle barrel and squeezed it so hard that he rendered it into a shapeless, collapsed mass of metal. It reminded Raina of the floppy folds of a dead balloon. The woman was wise enough not to try to shoot it, but when she tried to use it as a club, the super soldier yanked it out of her hands as if she were a mere child.

“Lily!” the black-haired woman called. “Don’t!”

The woman in the eye patch looked enraged, but refrained from trying to attack once more. She was breathing heavily through her nose and her lips were pressed tightly together.

“Now we’re done here,” Raina declared, beginning to make her way to the front door. Before she left, she paused and looked back over her shoulder. “Thanks,” she said, and left.

***

Fitz fiddled with the data on his computer in the command center, with Skye and Simmons looking over his shoulders. Ned felt his eyelids drooping, but he was determined to stay awake. Soon he would know where his father was – if the man even was his father – or, at the very least, someone he had never met who was like Chuck, and he wanted to be awake for that. Ward had kindly brought him a coffee, though the agent himself didn’t drink any.

“Thanks,” Ned said, accepting the steaming cup. He carefully took a sip and eyed Chuck, who stood across the room with her arms cross and pointedly not looking at him. Coulson also gave him a wary look, but probably because Ned was holding a container of liquid in a room full of tech.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Fitz was saying. “The golden retrievers picked up three things with the same scent.”

“What?” Skye asked, though she could read the data as well as he.

“According to these readings, they located the pocket watches at Chuck’s aunts’ house and another watch in an apartment complex not far from the Pie Hole.”

Ned froze. The watches had the same scent as Chuck and Chuck’s father?

“What’s even more confusing is we set the retrievers to only track things that were moving, so it could eliminate corpses,” Fitz continued. Skye and Simmons looked at him in panic.

“Are you saying that those watches… move?” Skye asked. Ned shivered.

“Maybe it’s not the watches themselves,” Coulson ventured, “but whatever’s inside them.”

“The 0-8-4 is alive?” Ward asked. The whole team seemed to be on-edge. Ned thought he saw Coulson glance at Skye, but he became distracted when May started to speak.

“We should go get those watches,” she said. “We need to move fast in case anyone saw those retrievers.”

“Agreed,” Coulson said. “You and I will go bring Mr. Edwards in. Chuck and Ward will go get the watches from her aunts’ house. Fitz, Simmons, and Skye, you’re on coms. Ned… you can do what you want.”

Ned felt his heart sink. He was feeling more and more excluded the further into this mission the team went. Were they afraid of him? Was he dangerous? He sighed and nodded, opting to try to get some sleep in his bunk.

***

Both Coulson and May wore bulletproof vests. After meeting Charles Charles and witnessing his paranoia, they didn’t know what to expect from Edward Edwards.

Fitz’s golden retrievers had given them an address less than a mile from the Pie Hole, and May and Coulson had brought their dendrotoxin pistols rather than their usual handguns. They wanted Edwards alive.

Coulson looked at May as they sat in silence in the red convertible for a brief moment before entering the building. “You okay?” May asked, her stern demeanor softening slightly now that no one else was around. Coulson sighed. May was always a little less guarded around him.

“No particularly,” he replied. “I’ve got a bus containing a bomb with an unknown countdown ticking away.”

“You mean Ned?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re afraid he’s going to go off and somehow affect the team?”

“Yes. And the knowledge that Centipede wants that bomb for whatever their next stage turns out to be is really unnerving.”

“Can we stop with the metaphor?”

Coulson smiled, seeing that May had meant her last comment good-naturedly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sometimes it’s easier to talk in metaphors. It distances you from what’s actually happening.” May nodded.

“I don’t think Ned could hurt anybody,” she said. “Even if he had control over what he was doing.”

“He seems distant, isolated. All of this business with his father is really getting to him.”

“He could never hurt anyone,” May repeated. Coulson saw that she was staring at him intensely, and immediately he knew that she believed that with all of her being. He nodded and began readying his pistol.

“Ready?” he asked. May said nothing and simply smiled, sliding from the passenger side and into the darkened alleyway where the door to Edwards’ apartment was waiting for her.

They had no trouble breaking into the front door; it was old and gave way readily at Coulson’s touch. May led the way into a dirty lobby with musty-smelling carpets and faded yellow wallpaper peeling at the edges where it met doorframes. Coulson tried not to look at it. The pattern was dizzying and seemed to move as he walked towards the stairs.

A brief look at the mailbox labels told the agents which unit they were looking for. It was indeed Edwards Edwards who was registered as a tenant in this complex, not another mysterious undead person like Chuck; and as they quietly made their way up the stairs, Coulson began to wonder what sort of man Ned’s father was. Was he a killer, as he first believed? Edwards had, after all, shot and killed a SHIELD agent. But the more he thought, the more Coulson wondered if Edwards might somehow be one of the “good guys,” protecting an alien piece of technology from falling into the wrong hands, which, to be honest, could be any hands.

He was jarred from his thoughts by May’s hand signal, which told him to step back. As he did so, she kicked the door in, and it went flying into a small dark room illuminated only by the yellow streetlamps shining through the window from outside. Coulson pointed his pistol around the room, looking for movement. But after a few minutes of sweeping the place, they found nothing. May reached out to turn on the lights.

As soon as she did, Coulson felt someone press a gun to the back of his head.

“Drop your weapon,” a voice behind him said.

“My name is Agent Coulson,” he said. “I’m with SH-“

But before he could finish, the man made a jerky movement and fired a shot at Agent May. She expertly ducked down, but not quick enough to avoid being grazed on the shoulder, while Coulson used the opportunity to elbow the man in the stomach. When he doubled over in pain, Coulson took aim, but the man raised his gun once more. Coulson fired a shot, but he moved so quickly that the dendrotoxin dart simply buried itself in the wall behind them.

May wasted no time and charged right for them, easily kicking the gun out of their target’s hand. But unlike Charles, this man was ready for a fight, and he readily grabbed the hand that held the pistol, ensuring that May could not fire at him. Coulson, likewise, could not risk firing without hitting May.

May and Edwards fought each other for some time, throwing punches and ducking out of the way of each other’s blows. But after a time, May landed a kick to her opponent’s chest, which sent him sprawling on the ground, giving Coulson the chance to place a dart firmly in his abdomen. The man blacked out almost immediately.

May brushed a strand of hair from her eyes, breathing heavily from the combat.

“Did you have to charge him?” Coulson joked. “I was beginning to feel like a spectator, just watching you two go at it like that.” May frowned, and began to drag the body to the kitchen. Coulson holstered his pistol and helped her.

It was almost twenty minutes before their target started to come to, and Coulson secretly thanked Simmons for loading his weapon with average dosage darts rather than those meant for Centipede’s super soldiers. May had tied the man to a chair with a few bed sheets and a couple of zip ties she had found in a duffel bag in the bedroom. Upon waking and testing his restraints, the man began to struggle violently.

“You!” he yelled. “You let me out of here!”

“Mr. Edwards, my name is Agent Coulson, from SHIELD.”

“I don’t care who you are. Let me out.”

“Mr. Edwards, we’re here about a pocket watch you have in your possession.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We know you have it.”

“Go to hell.”

“Mr. Edwards, if you’ll only listen to me for a few minutes-“

“I’ll die before I tell you anything.”

May rolled her eyes with impatience. “We have your son,” she said, grabbing Edwards by the chin and forcing him to look at her. Edwards sneered, his dark blue eyes seeming strangely whole after their encounter with Charles Charles.

“I have no son,” he said.

Briefly, Coulson wondered if they had the wrong person. Was this really Edwards Edwards? Maybe he had moved away years ago and this was indeed someone else with Chuck’s scent. After all, Ned’s father had up and left before, and there was no doubt in Coulson’s mind that he could do it again at will.

May was about to let go of Edwards’ chin when Coulson made a motion to encourage her to keep hold of him. When she did so, Coulson leaned forward, studying the man’s features. His hair was a dark grey, streaked through with black; but had it been brown, it would have looked like Ned’s.

“You see that, May?” Coulson asked, pointing to Edwards’ face. “He’s got the same eyes and mouth.”

“No doubt they’re related, sir,” May replied, her voice deadpan. Edwards struggled, but May kept a firm grip. Coulson leaned in so that he was looking directly into Edwards’ eyes.

“Listen to me,” he said. “We’re taking you into custody whether you like it or not. You shot and killed one of our agents, and we can’t let that go.”

“Fine.”

Coulson nodded to May, who released Edwards’ jaw. The man kept his head tilted downward but looked up at Coulson with rage in his eyes.

“There’s something else you should know,” Coulson continued. “There’s a group called Centipede who’s after your son, Ned. They want to use his powers to bring their soldiers back from the dead as means to an end that we don’t know.”

Edwards raised his head and his featured immediately softened, though they retained a look of reserve. He sighed, looking around as if deciding how to respond, and he nervously tapped his foot as he struggled to find the right words to say.

“You say you have Ned somewhere?” Edwards asked, his voice rough and slow. Coulson nodded.

“He’s safe.”

“Nowhere is safe for him,” Edwards replied.

“You’ll come with us, peacefully?”

When Edwards laughed, May shot him again with the night-night pistol.


	19. Interlude 9

The woman in the flower dress looked over the shoulder of the man in the white lab coat, who was currently setting one of the pocket watches delicately on the table before him. The screens about the lab were filled with charts and diagrams and data, all of which Raina could understand. Their contents made her heart pump eagerly with anticipation.

She had just received a call from the Clairvoyant. Keep the watches ready. He would appear soon.

But he would not come until she collected all three parts. A call from the Clairvoyant had told her what was in those watches – something alien. He had told her about Adam Warlock, about the madness. But the Clairvoyant still could not see it. Only by uniting the watches and all the parts of the mysterious artifact would they become kings… or gods. Until then, he would still be vulnerable. She could not leave her master defenseless.

“We’ve collected all necessary data,” the man in the lab coat said. Raina nodded and ran her fingers along the glimmering edge of the silver watches.

“One last part,” she said, mostly to herself. “We just need you, Ned. Once we get you, we’ll be invincible.”


	20. Taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edwards tells Ned about the watches and his resurrection powers.

It had been hours.

Edwards was not giving up any information. He was resistant, to say the least, and no matter how many threats he received, no matter how many punches to the face he was given, he still refused to say anything.

Ned didn’t want to see him.

Coulson went to Ned’s bunk, where the Pie Maker lay half asleep, and asked him to help obtain the information they desired; but Ned shook his head. He did not want to see his father. They would have to get the information without his help. Coulson nodded and left, fully aware there was nothing he could do to force Ned to assist them, but nevertheless feeling his shoulders sag slightly with disappointment.

He hadn’t told Ned that Chuck and Ward had not found the other two watches, that Lily and Vivian had described a woman in a flower dress and a man with incredible strength breaking into their house and stealing the objects. The agents were beginning to feel desperate. How long before they came for Ned?

Ward, Coulson, and May took shifts interrogating their captive as the others caught up on their much needed rest. Granted, sleeping was probably the last thing they should be doing with Centipede so near and in possession of two of the watches, but as Coulson saw Fitz and Simmons spread out on the lounge couches, he took pity on his team. They _had_ been working hard, and if ever they were going to meet Centipede head-on, they needed all the energy they could get.

About an hour after sunrise, Coulson entered the cargo hold, where they had handcuffed Edwards to the wall, away from Lola.

“Would you just kill me already?” Edwards said. “This whole bad cop routine is getting stale.”

Coulson sat down in a chair that was left in the cargo hold. “Centipede has the other two watches,” he said, his voice stern with impatience. Immediately, Edwards’ face changed.

“How?”

“I’m not sure.”

“It was those glowing orbs of yours,” Edwards spat. “They probably followed them.”

“You saw them?”

“Yeah. Thought they were tricks of light until you guys showed up at my apartment.”

Coulson sighed and leaned forward in his chair. “Mr. Edwards,” he pleaded, “I _need_ you to tell us what was in those watches.” Edwards looked up at him and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I’ll tell you,” he said, “if I can see my son.”

“He doesn’t want to see you.”

“That’s my condition.”

“He won’t come down.”

“Let me go up.” He shifted his legs. “He deserves to hear everything from me.”

Coulson eyed him suspiciously, contemplating whether or not to let such a dangerous man wandering about on his bus.

After a few moments, Coulson nodded and reached out to unlock the handcuffs.

***

Ned sat up in his bed, staring blankly at the empty cot where Chuck should have slept. She had not come in to the room last night after returning from her mission, as he’d hoped she would, and as a result, he did not sleep peacefully. The distance between them felt like a knife in his chest, and the longer they were apart, the more the knife twisted and sank deeper into his heart.

What was he doing? This was not like him, to be so distant. He had always been shy, reclusive, and nervous, but ever since they’d arrived on this bus… this world, the world of SHIELD was changing him. And he didn’t like it.

A firm knock on the door jolted Ned from his thoughts. “Come in,” he called, hoping it would be Chuck.

But it wasn’t. It was his father.

Ned didn’t recognize him at first, but when the man with the split lip entered the makeshift bedchamber and stared directly at him, Ned felt as if he were looking into a mirror many years in his future. Something in him just knew this was the man who had abandoned him at Longborough School all those years ago, and the taste of bile steadily rose in the back of his throat.

“Can I come in?” the man asked.

Ned wanted to yell at him, to scream “Get out!” and slam the door in his face. He wanted to leave the bus, to take one of the cars (preferably the red one) and drive so far away that neither his father, nor SHIELD, nor Centipede would ever find him again. How nice it would be to shed all of this calamity, like Atlas relieving himself of the entire world on his shoulders, and drive far, far away where he could return to his normal, peaceful life as a pie maker.

The thought reminded him of his mother, her baking and her death… He remembered the loving manner in which she stroked his hair, letting him lick the spoon after filling a pie crust with chocolate and cherries. He remembered feeling loved. Chuck loved him, he knew, but thinking about his mother made Ned remember her death and how it was the first time the feeling of home was ripped from him. _Home._ His home was always taken from him: his mother, his father, Chuck, the Pie Hole. At that thought, Ned was suddenly snapped back into the world of SHIELD where his estranged father was staring him full in the face.

When Ned said nothing, Edwards came in anyway and sat on the bunk where Chuck should be. He was a poor substitute for a companion.

“So,” Edwards began. “How have you been?”

“Fine,” Ned replied, his voice laced with hatred and his body betraying the fact that he wanted to flee. Edwards wiped his hands on his pants.

“I’ve been to your restaurant. You’re very good… like your mother was.”

“What do you want?”

Edwards sighed and looked away. _Coward,_ Ned thought. _Can’t even look me in the eyes._ But he felt his own gaze wandering desperately about the room, feigning interest in the smallest details on the walls and in the floors.

“I was at the restaurant when the bomb went off,” Edwards said, still avoiding Ned’s eyes. “You probably didn’t know it, but I tried to help you in the street.”

At once, Ned was mentally transported back to that night. The smell of sulfur and the hot, wet trickling of blood running down his hands and face became just as vivid as it was when he first was thrown to the ground, his heart pumping wildly as he screamed for Chuck. _Ned felt a hand on his shoulder and a muffled voice asked him, “Hey, son, are you okay?” The Pie Maker pushed himself to his knees, feeling hot blood trickle down his cheek and drip from his jaw. Small bits of glass dropped from his hair and shoulders and his tattered black trench coat smelled of smoke and grime._

“There’s something you need to know,” Edwards continued, snapping Ned from his thoughts for the second time. “It’s about you, your mother, and me.”

“Okay.”

Edwards sighed and rubbed his hands together. “It’s about your gift.”

Ned blinked in surprise. How did his father know?

“How do you know about…?”

Edwards chuckled. “I’ve always had a suspicion that something powerful was in you.”

Ned was immediately intrigued, despite trying to be resolved against his father. “Something?”

Edwards raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t think it was genetic, did you?”

Those words stung. Though rationally he knew what his father meant – that his powers were something different, something 0-8-4-ish, and something in him, not a part of him – all Ned heard was, “You’re not extraordinary.” He felt himself grow cold, and he did his best to avoid his father’s eyes.

“No,” he said. “I guess I didn’t.”

“That watch,” Edwards continued, breezing past Ned’s disappointment, “I received it in Egypt before I met your mother.”

“I know,” Ned replied.

“What you don’t know is what the man said to me when I got it. He said to keep them safe, not to give them to anyone else. And to make sure of that, he engraved our initials on them in silver.”

“Why did he say that?”

“There was something in them, and now, that something is in you.”

Ned looked up and for the second time found himself highly engaged with his father’s story against his childish resolve not to be. He felt his heart begin to flutter in anticipation.

“How do you know my powers are from the watch?”

“It’s not the watch, exactly,” Edwards explained. “I didn’t know what the dealer was talking about, and Charles and Dwight and I thought he was crazy until I opened mine a few years later.”

“What happened?”

Edwards sighed and made a motion with his hand, as if trying to pick the right words to say out of the air.

“Not long after you were born,” Edwards said, “I opened my watch. Not just the part that shows you the face and the time, but the actual body where the gears are. Your mother and I were tired. You were born with a heart defect, and for a while we thought you would die. We were caring for you night and day for what felt like ages.”

Ned felt a strange sensation come over him. Why would his parents hide this from him? He had not known of his health problems as a baby, and somehow, the knowledge unsettled him, without his knowing why. He shifted in his seat, clasping and unclasping his hands as he tried to remain calm.

“I was desperate,” Edwards continued. “I didn’t know what to do. And suddenly… I remembered what the dealer said about the watch, that it was special. I was half-awake, crazy, overcome with worry, so I decided to open it and see if what he said was true. And it was, though not how I expected it.”

He paused, as if something was physically blocking him from speaking. A wetness glimmered in his eyes, and for a moment, Ned pitied him. The pain he felt seemed genuine, and the memory threatened to gnaw its way out of the past and break through to the present. In some ways, it already was.

“What was in the watch, dad?” Ned asked, addressing his father as a child would for the first time since he was nine. Edwards ran a hand through his hair.

“It was a green mist,” he said. “I know it sounds crazy, but it was a beautiful emerald spray, like a thousand stars in the palm of my hand. When I opened the watch, it was like it had been set free from its cage, swirling up in the most intricate patterns you can imagine.”

“Where did it go?”

“That’s the thing. It went into me.”

“You? Does that mean you can…?”

“No,” Edwards said, smiling. “I can no further resurrect a fly than anyone else can.”

Ned felt his heart sink as he realized he had been hoping his father would be like him. Edwards shook his head and continued his story.

“When I absorbed it, I began to see things,” he said. “Past, present, future. I looked at the world around me and I could see everything as it really was. Some of it was grotesque, but other parts were radiant and beautiful. I imagined it was like seeing the world before Adam ate the apple, when everything was one and there was no deceit in the world.”

He paused and rubbed his hands together.

“But I couldn’t handle it,” he continued. “I went mad. I forgot who I was, I abandoned your mother, and I spent all my time searching for Eden.”

Ned nodded, trying to signal that he understood. He pitied his mother, imagining the pain she must have felt with a sick child and a husband who left them. She had always doted on him, checked on him every night and held him tightly in her arms as if to convince herself that he was real and he would never go away. As much as he felt abandoned by his father, Ned wondered how his mother must have felt and the pain she must have experienced every day of her life, wondering if one or the other would leave at any moment.

“But I came back,” Edwards said, breaking Ned out of his thoughts. “I remembered you and your delicate health, so I went back to the house, thinking I could use this vision to help you somehow. Your mother was surprised. I imagine I must have looked pretty frightening. But I came into the nursery and I reached down and touched you. And immediately, all the energy went out of me. I lost the sight, everything was fallen again.”

He paused.

“I thought maybe it had healed you and then evaporated into the air,” he continued. “In a matter of seconds you were better. Your mother took you to the doctor, and there was no trace of your condition. You can’t imagine the joy she felt when she learned that you were going to live and grow up like a normal child… But I was angry that I couldn’t see the world anymore, and feeling so resentful towards you scared me so much, I warned Charles not to ever open his watch. I didn’t want him to feel that way towards Charlotte the way I felt towards you at that time.”

Ned nodded again, and a thick silence hung in the air around father and son. For several seconds, they just looked at each other, and Ned felt it was like looking into his past and future at the same time.

Edwards made a gesture towards Ned. “Can you see…?” he asked. Ned shook his head.

“No,” he replied. “Just bring dead people back to life.”

“Good,” Edwards said. “I mean… it must work differently on you, for some reason. But I wouldn’t want that for you.”

“Why did you leave, dad?”

“The government… or SHIELD, rather… they found me out after your mother died, made connections back to the dealer after they interviewed Charles and Dwight. They didn’t tell them about their own watches, but Lily and Vivian told the black suits about how I went mad. That and your medical miracle was enough for them. I had to drop you off somewhere safe. But I didn’t know you could… do what you do.”

“But if you didn’t have the mist anymore…?”

“I was afraid, Ned,” Edwards explained. “I was afraid they’d take me in, cut me open. I was afraid they’d want the other watches, and the best thing I could do was run.”

Ned barely heard his father’s explanation. The sound of his own name on Edwards’ lips was strange, as if hearing it in a foreign language. So unfamiliar was the sound of his father’s voice that he wasn’t sure how to think. Was this a reunion? A first meeting?

“Why did you kill that guy, Andrews?” Ned asked after a few moments.

“He found me,” Edwards said with a shrug. “He asked about the watch, said that he would pay you a visit. I shot him and dumped him in the next county by a psych ward. People would be less suspicious of a body by a psych ward.”

His explanation seemed so matter-of-fact, Ned wasn’t sure how he should take it. Ned sighed and wiped his palms on his pants. His father’s judgments about the psychological institute made him uncomfortable, and obviously, Quire Country Psychological Institute had been the wrong place to hide a murdered SHIELD agent. The coincidence was striking, and Ned felt there must be something more than what his father was telling him.

“Why that one?” he asked. “Of all the places, why the one where Centipede was going?” Edwards didn’t reply. Ned noticed that his father conspicuously avoided meeting his gaze. “Dad?” he said, and when their eyes met, “Did you know about Centipede?”

The look on his father’s face was pained. “Yes,” he replied.

“How?”

“I’ve talked to them before.”

Ned froze.

“What?” he said, his voice becoming a bit more hardened.

“There was a woman in a flower dress,” he said. “She approached me one day, before the SHIELD agent found me, and asked where you were. I have no idea how she found me, and she did not seem to know about the watch. I told her I had no son, that I didn’t know what she was talking about. But she…” he paused and took a breath. “Until my dying breath, I’ll always be ashamed that I told her where your bakery was. Believe me, I never thought they would blow it up.”

Ned couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. The air around him was thin and his heart was on fire. _That was how they found him, how they knew in which place to plant the bomb._ Centipede hadn’t hacked SHIELD’s systems, nor had they stolen any intel from their stakeout. It was all Edwards. His own father was to blame for this… for everything that was happening.

“The SHIELD agent came a couple days later,” Edwards continued when Ned remained silent. “I killed him, but when I heard about that psychologist in Quire County, I dumped his body there. The black suits found him a couple hours later. I stuck around to make sure they found it, and I heard them say the name ‘Centipede.’ I thought I had pinned the murder on them, and they would be apprehended so you could be safe.” He looked around the room. “Obviously, I was wrong.”

“You think?” Ned spat. He felt rage beginning to boil inside him and his neck grew red and hot. “You told Centipede about me and now they’ve got the other two watches!” He stood up. “If you had just kept your mouth shut, none of this would have happened. I’d still be back in my restaurant making pies and Centipede would be one step farther away from… whatever it is they want to do.”

“Ned, I had no choice.”

“You always have a choice! You think I wouldn’t die for Chuck?”

Edwards shook his head, but all he said was, “I’m sorry.” For Ned, it wasn’t enough. He began to head for the door.

“It’s called the Animus,” Edwards said suddenly, causing Ned to halt in his tracks. “The mist. I knew it when it was in my body. I don’t know how, but I just knew.”

“The Animus,” Ned breathed. He suddenly and inexplicably thought of those blonde and red-haired women from Fury’s office. “Is it… is it the Phoenix force?”

Edwards shook his head. “I’ve seen the Phoenix force, and the Animus is its own entity.” Ned wanted to leave right then and there, but Edwards continued. “The part that’s in you is only a fraction of it. The other parts are in the other watches and a small sliver remains in mine. I don’t know why it was divided, or by whom, but I know that if Centipede unites all of them in a single body… they’ll be unstoppable.” He reached into his pocket and drew out a silver watch, which he turned over delicately in his hands, like it was precious to him. With a sigh, he placed it lovingly on Ned’s cot. “You should take this.”

But he didn’t. Ned felt tears of anger and frustration prickling at the back of his eyes. Without another word, he left the interrogation room, slamming the door behind him.

***

Coulson sat across from Edwards in his office. He had heard everything over the security cameras, and Ned was currently taking a walk outside the bus to cool off. Honestly, Coulson didn’t want the Pie Maker’s anger unlocking some kind of cosmic energy aboard his bus, but he asked May to follow him discreetly just in case. Now, sitting with Ned’s father, he understood why he had left and why he was so desperate to avoid SHIELD.

He also had the watch. When Ned hadn’t taken it, Coulson did not hesitate to scoop the article up for himself. It was cool in his hand, and as he ran his fingers along the length of its chain, he watched Edwards’ face become pained, as if he had lost a part of himself.

“We’re not the bad guys, you know,” Coulson said, setting the watch on his desk. Edwards shook his head.

“No one’s the good guy when the Animus is around.”

“You could have trusted us to handle the situation.”

“Is that why the Tesseract and the Aether are on earth now?” he scoffed sarcastically. Coulson’s face twisted in confusion.

“How did you know about…?”

“Sight… remember?” Edwards tapped his temple with one of his long, tapered fingers. “I know about the stones.”

“What stones?”

Edwards remained silent.

***

As hard as May tried, she could not remain inconspicuous. Ned had decided to wander into a field, and the thought of crouching down and army-crawling her way over the grass made May feel foolish.

The day was cool, and Ned had pulled on a SHIELD jacket which made a swishing noise as he moved. He didn’t look back at May, but instead sat down on the grass and ran his hand along the blades. A golden glow rippled through them, and several white daisies poked through the earth, stretching their necks until they turned their faces towards the sky. May felt herself almost smiling at the sight.

“I know you’re there,” Ned said. May walked over and sat on the ground next to him. She watched him bring more daisies out of the ground. “Dead seeds,” he said, but May was not wondering about that.

“What else has to die?” she asked, resting her forearms on her knees. Ned shrugged.

“Probably some weeds.”

“You know, in some cultures, daisies are a symbol of truth.”

Ned smiled and laughed. “Yeah,” he replied. “I bet they are.” May didn’t press him any further. As she sat next to him, she could swear she felt the anger and disappointment running off of him in waves. She reached down and plucked one of the flowers, wrapping her fingers gently around its stem and silently watching the petals shiver in the breeze. When was the last time she’d enjoyed something so simple as a daisy?

“I’m not extraordinary, you know,” Ned said, after a few minutes. May didn’t look at him, but he continued to speak. “Turns out this touch is just some alien mist.”

“That means someone can get it out of you,” May interrupted. “You could be just like everyone else.”

She saw Ned freeze out of the corner of her eye and she could read his thoughts as clearly as if he were speaking them aloud: _Did he want to be normal?_ May lay the daisy on the grass.

You’re wrong, you know,” she continued. “You are extraordinary.”

“My gift is extraordinary.”

“No,” she said simply, and rose to her feet. “It’s dangerous. It was enough for Centipede to plant a bomb in your restaurant. You… you’ve carried it all these years and not once have you used it for anything other than good.”

Ned looked up and gave her a small smile before turning pink at the ears.

***

Coulson put down his phone on his desk, having just finished a conversation with SHIELD regarding the transfer of a prisoner. A nearby team would arrive in a few hours to take Edwards into custody, where he would await trial for the murder of Andrews.

“You’re lucky, Coulson,” the voice on the other end of the line had said. He was sure it was Hand’s. “Someone’s pulled a lot of strings to make sure you’re not being charged for that break out.”

He still got the sense that they were upset with him. Hand especially. She sounded suspicious on the phone, and Coulson doubted she’s ever trust him again. But thankfully, someone had made sure he’d remain blameless… at least on file.

He had done everything according to protocol regarding Edwards. He needed to. He was walking a thin line, but he didn’t feel like handing him over to Victoria Hand was the right thing to do at this point in time. If only he could just hang on to his prisoner for a little longer – but no, that would destroy him completely.

An aching pressure began to fill Coulson’s chest, as if someone were slowing trying to force all the air from his lungs. _Trust the system,_ he thought. But could he do that? After all he knew? Centipede. The Phoenix. The Animus. He was so deeply involved in this resurrection quest that he wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to leave it. Was his own mysterious resurrection alien, just like these entities were? What secrets was SHIELD keeping from him about all of this? Coulson rubbed his forehead with his hand, trying to clear his thoughts.

Maybe he should go talk with his team. It would be nice to tell them about the Animus. With all the fuss about prisoner transfer, he had neglected to debrief them. He would feel better.

Coulson made his way down to the cargo hold, where Fitzsimmons, Chuck, and Edwards were talking in the lab. He had turned the watch over to them to be analyzed, wondering why it had attracted the Golden Retrievers if the Animus that was inside it was now inside Ned, and Ward and Skye stood nearby, watching as the scientists played with shapes above the holotable. May and Ned were just coming through the loading dock, the latter stuffing his hands self-consciously in his jacket pockets and making a visible effort not to look at his father. Seeing them all together made Coulson’s heart warm. They were his team, even Chuck and Ned. He wondered if there was anything he wouldn’t do for them.

Suddenly, the bus jolted violently.

“May!” Coulson called, grabbing the railing of the spiral staircase beside him. “What was that?”

Before she could answer, another jolt rocked the bus, sending a painfully high-pitched creaking noise throughout the cargo hold. Ward and Skye rushed out of the lab to try to pinpoint the cause, but they were as lost as everyone else. Edwards had lunged for the watch, but Fitz had pounced on it first and protectively cupped it in his hands. Ned grabbed on to the side mirror of the black SUV as May crouched down in the attempt to keep her balance. With panic, Coulson got the feeling that he should close the cargo door, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. _What is going on?_ It wasn’t like him to freeze up.

Suddenly, there was a loud popping sound, and to his horror, he saw a spray of blood shoot from May’s right calf. He saw Ned’s face, his eyebrows raised in panic and his mouth dropped open as if trying to scream in a room with no air. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, but before he could draw his gun, another dart hit May in the shoulder and she began to fall.

Simmons acted quickly and shut the doors to the lab, closing herself, Fitz, Edwards, and Chuck within the protective barrier. Ned and Skye took cover behind the SUV as Ward moved to pull May’s body away from the fire.

Coulson came to his senses and lunged for the button to close the cargo hold door, but before he could do anything, a shot exploded through his arm, causing him to recoil.

“Coulson!” Skye shouted. Coulson ducked and hugged his arm to his body, attempting to slow the flow of blood that was soaking through his suit jacket. Sweat began to break out on his forehead as he heard more popping noises, making cracks appear on the lab doors. He gritted his teeth and reached up to slam the button with all of his strength.

But nothing happened. The door remained open.

“Get in the lab!” Coulson yelled to Skye and Ned, motioning for them to take May with them. She had not lost consciousness, but she was struggling to remain upright.

Suddenly, two super soldiers appeared at the opening of the plane. Coulson raised his gun to shoot them, but halted when he saw what they were holding. As they came out in the open, one of them dramatically raised his arms and dropped a very large and heavy-looking piece of machinery onto the floor, which echoed with a deafening _clank._

The auxiliary power unit.

They were grounded. Even if they wanted to take off, they would have no power. They could not start the engines or operate any of the electronics.

The other super soldier held a grenade launcher and was aiming a shot right at the lab. Coulson yelled and reached out his hand just as the explosive hissed through the air.


	21. Interlude 10

It was like the Pie Hole all over again.

Ned clasped his hands over his ears and braced himself against the rush of fire that sent bits of glass flying in all directions. He closed his eyes and yelled as he felt a hundred tiny knives slice across his arms and legs, criss-crossing his face and tangling themselves in his hair. Warm blood began to trickle down his face… it eerily brought him back to the night of the bombing at his own restaurant, and all at once, time began to collapse for him. Everything was connected. Everything was tied up together. Centipede was here and they would get what they came for this time.

When he looked up, the lab was on fire. The holotables were gone and debris littered the floor. Edwards was hunched over Chuck, shielding her from the onslaught, and Fitzsimmons were huddled in a corner, their arms around each other and one of their lab coats flimsily blocking them from the worst of the shrapnel. Chuck was alive, and the sight of her moving around made Ned’s heart leap for joy despite the disaster that surrounded them.

But then he saw how frantic Chuck’s movements appeared. She was throwing herself onto Edwards in a way that confused Ned until he saw deep red stains begin to saturate his father’s coat and pants. Chuck shoved her hands onto Edwards’ body as the flames erupted all over the lab, consuming everything… the work, the gadgets, the files. Everything they had been researching since Ned and Chuck arrived was slowly burning to a crisp.

Fitz and Simmons emerged from under the coat bleeding, but did not move because one of the super soldiers was walking straight towards them. Ned saw the pained look on their faces turn to fear as they realized how helpless they were against him, equipped with nothing to defend themselves. Fitz made a motion to get up, perhaps a bold move to go down fighting, but Simmons grasped onto him as the super soldier turned away and walked straight into the fire, reaching his hands into the tongues of flame and pulling out the watch, which had miraculously remained intact. The heat of the metal didn’t even seem to bother him as Ned saw his skin sizzle upon contact.

Then, he felt someone grab him from behind.

As he was hoisted up, he saw that the other super soldier was trying to talk to him, but as much as he saw the man’s lips move, Ned could not hear his voice.

 _Oh god,_ he thought, _have I gone deaf?_

He didn’t have time to think, for the man knocked him over the head with a massive fist, plunging Ned’s senses into darkness.


	22. Absorption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Animus doesn't stay in the watches.

Ward struggled to sit up on the floor of the cargo hold.

He had managed to land a few good punches to one of the super soldiers, but he had been struck so forcefully in the stomach that all the air rushed out of him, and he had fallen to the floor. He couldn’t inhale, and he was beginning to panic. His chest burned and his insides felt hollow, like the punch had voided his soul from his body, and to make matters worse, he had also incurred a swift kick to the face, for good measure. The blow broke his nose, sending blood gushing over his lips and down his chin. He spit some of the coppery-tasting liquid onto the ground and watched as the soldiers took Ned and the watch with them.

Control had slipped away from him. He had failed to protect his team… failed to keep Ned safe, and now, he felt anxiety rising in his chest and clawing at his heart and throat. _Why did I fail?_ he thought, trying to find his point of weakness.

But there was none. They had taken the agents by surprise, smartly eliminated their most menacing target and launched a grenade before anyone could think. Their plan was flawless… so what was it that he was feeling?

When the soldiers left, Skye ran to Coulson, coating her hands in the blood that dripped from his arm. May sat shakily on the floor beside him, a hand pressed to her shoulder. Simmons bravely emerged and began rummaging around the lab to find uncontaminated bandages as Fitz put the fire out with an extinguisher from the cargo hold. Chuck held a bleeding Edwards in her arms, the latter passed out and laying limply on the floor.

_They shouldn’t have him. They can’t have Ned. Everything will be ruined._

Ward pushed himself up and looked at May. “I’m fine,” she said, though something in her voice betrayed the fact that she wasn’t. Ward nodded but placed one of his hands over her calf anyway, which she accepted gratefully. Her blood was warm against his hands.

_Why did I fail?_

The thought replayed over and over in his mind to the point where he didn’t perceive May speaking to him. He was so consumed by the aching in his chest, the wetness of the blood on his fingers, the smell of burning and accelerant and Skye’s cries that Ward felt inundated by the waves of calamity.

At least they were all still alive.

_Wait._

They were alive. _Why didn’t they kill us?_

“Ward!” he suddenly heard May shout. “Are you with me?”

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “Yeah… May, we’re alive.”

She rolled her eyes. “Barely.”

“No, I mean it. Centipede had the chance to finish us off, but they didn’t. Why not?”

“They wanted Ned… and the watch,” May said, seemingly bored, as if Ward had just identified something obvious. Ward looked around and saw Simmons pointing to the staircase, instructing Fitz to retrieve materials from elsewhere on the bus.

“Yeah, but why not just kill us while they were at it? Eliminate the threat?”

May shrugged, which made her wince slightly in pain. “I don’t know. But we need to go after Ned.” She started to rise, but Ward held her leg tightly, preventing her from moving. She gave him a look of annoyance.

“I’m going to get bandaged up,” she said, more a command than an explanation. Ward shook his head.

“Just wait here until Simmons can come look at you.”

“You don’t have to pretend, you know.”

“Pretend what?”

“Like you care about me.”

Her words sent a chill throughout Ward’s body, conflicting strangely with the heat of her blood. He looked away from her, feeling embarrassed. Why did she have to bring that up? Why was she so cold now?

“I do care about you.”

She rolled her eyes, and that set him off.

“You know, when we first… you know.”

“Say the thing, Ward.”

“Okay, fine.” He felt his neck turning red. “When we started having sex, we were adamant about keeping it casual. No strings attached. That was the deal.”

“It was,” May hissed. “I’m not mad because you have feelings for someone else. I’m mad that you weren’t honest.”

“Why should that matter?”

“Because we’re a team. We need to be able to trust each other.”

He expected those words to hurt him, but they didn’t. Instead, he just nodded. She was right. He needed to be more honest with himself and with his team, let them that. Maybe he should show some feelings, however much his brain hated the idea. The ache in his chest began to dissipate and he was suddenly highly aware of May’s body language.

“Let me help you,” he said, helping her shift closer to the SUV so she could lean against it. As he assisted her, Simmons came rushing forward, arms full of torn bed sheets to serve as bandages. “Shouldn’t you be looking after Edwards?” he asked, confused. “He’s hurt pretty badly.”

Simmons shook her head. “He’s breathing okay,” she said. “I gave him a few shots of stabilizing drugs and gave Chuck some bandages to help slow his bleeding. I’ll check on him once I’ve seen to May, but the best thing we can do is wait for the response team to get here with a hyperbaric chamber. Now, let me see that.” She gently pulled May’s hand away from her shoulder, letting out an “ooo” when blood began to trickle anew from the wound. May didn’t even flinch.

“She’s got it,” she said to Ward, inclining her head towards Simmons. Ward kept his hands clasped around the wound on her leg.

“I’m not going anywhere until I make sure you’re okay,” he said. He thought he saw May smile ever so slightly.

“We need to find Ned,” she replied. Simmons shook her head firmly.

“I wouldn’t recommend going out in the field like this,” she said. “You’d bleed out too quickly. Plus, we have no idea if Centipede’s got a full tactical team on Ned or if they’ve dissected him by now.”

“At least they won’t kill him,” Ward continued, his eyes continuing to wander. “But they’re going to try to use him. We’ve got to find them, fast.”

“How?” May asked. Ward wiped some of the blood from his nose and gave her a weak smile.

“They’ve got the watches, right?”

***

Bright. Fuzzy. Ned could only feel extremes when his eyes finally blinked open. Extreme heat, extreme brightness, extreme pain. The light pierced his pupils like a thousand tiny needles, but he couldn’t make out any shapes. People were talking… he hadn’t gone deaf… but he felt as if he were listening to them from underwater. _Eeee kmmm now ih._ What were they saying?

His head rolled to the size and he felt a searing pain splitting through his skull. _Oh yes,_ he remembered. I was knocked out. It felt like he had been struck in the head with an ax, splitting his skull in two.

“Leave us,” he heard a voice say, and then a patter of feet and the rustling of cloth. He struggled to recognize his surroundings, but nothing felt familiar. Ned tried to sit up, but his limbs would not move. They were solid, like they had been encased in lead, and as he strained, he felt all the energy rapidly drain from his body, as if every movement caused his strength to leak out through his skin. After a few tries, all he could manage was a pitifully weak jerk of his wrists. But they didn’t move.

_What the…?_

His vision became more clear, only to see that he was not lying down at all, but propped up on a long, vertical table. His back was lined with metal, stretching him out lengthwise like a museum exhibit, but the table was cold and unyielding, not at all the tombs of Egyptian kings or even the rough sheets of the bus cots. With another jerk, he tried to step away, but he still could not move. The feeling of constraint caused his heart to race, sending a new flow of energy through his veins, drenching his muscles with adrenaline. Blinking more furiously, he looked down and saw a long canvas strap encircling his chest and two metal cuffs securing his hands to the table at his sides. His ankles also felt fettered, though Ned couldn’t see them.

_No._

He struggled more violently.

_No no no no._

“Ned,” came a voice. He looked up in panic to see the woman in the flower dress slinking her way towards him, curls swaying with her movements.

“Let me out!” he said, his voice barely able to leave his lips from fear. His chest burned and he felt a lump rising in his throat. Whatever was in store for him, he knew it would be infinitely worse than what he’d experienced at SHIELD’s headquarters.

Raina shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. You’ll have to wait a little while until the Clairvoyant arrives.”

“How long will that be?” Sweat began to mist his forehead.

“A few hours.”

She reached out a hand towards him, her nails like delicate pearls on the end of her long, slender fingers. Ned turned his head away from her, attempting to distance himself from her oncoming touch, but he could not go anywhere, so he simply closed his eyes against the bush of her skin, misleadingly soft and gentle against the curve of his jaw.

“Why do you shrink from me, Ned? We could be friends, you and I,” Raina asked, grasping his chin gently in her hand. He strained against his stays.

“You blew up my restaurant,” he said, his eyes still clenched shut against her. “Threatened my girlfriend. Attacked my friends.”

“All of which are regrettable.” She forced his face towards her, and his eyelids involuntarily snapped open. Her eyes reminded Ned of dark flames, the way they were looking at him with anticipation and hunger. “But you could have prevented it all.”

He thought his heart must have stopped. “What do you mean?”

“If you had come with us willingly…” She placed a finger over his lips. “None of this would have happened. Chuck would be safe and SHIELD would not be a threat.” She leaned in closer, so close that Ned could smell the floral perfume on her skin. He wanted to gag on it.

“It’s only a matter of time,” Raina continued, staring intently into his eyes. “When the Clairvoyant arrives, he will draw the power out of you. And we will be unstoppable.”

She gently released him and turned away with a smile, leaving him alone with the echo of her heels clicking on the tile floor.

Against his better judgment, Ned began to wonder if she was right. _Am I responsible?_ Part of him thought so. Hadn’t he been thinking the exact same thing on the bus, just hours before? Or was it days? He couldn’t remember… but hearing his own thoughts spoken aloud to him through Raina’s mouth unsettled him while bringing about a sense of validation at the same time.

He wanted it over. He wanted the Clairvoyant to arrive, to extract the Animus from him. He wanted to see the swirling green mist evaporate out of his skin and watch as his enemy ascended to godlike power right before his eyes. Wouldn’t it be easier to just give in and let everything happen? All of this was his fault. If he could just let it all go, he wouldn’t be responsible anymore… and he could drift away into oblivion as the world burned around him.

_Chuck._

Her name was like a soothing balm on the aching thoughts in his head. Picturing her face, her glowing smile, he at once resolved himself to fight. No matter what Raina did, he could not let Centipede harm Chuck, even if he had to forfeit his own existence. She was his air, his guiding light. Without Chuck, the world was much darker and cold, like the inside of his pie freezer. This whole mission, their alliance with SHIELD and being away from Papen County had dampened her spirit, and he felt painfully aware of how she had been marginalized this whole time. She was the one who usually came up with the ideas, who led them from crime scene to crime scene, who gave them hope when the case looked hopeless. Centipede and SHIELD had deprived her of that, and more than anything, Ned wanted to see her as she was: bright, happy, and alive.

He strained again against his cuffs, but they refused to budge. How would he get out of this?

He tried again, pushing against the metal with all of his might until the veins began to stand out on his neck and arms. _Gross,_ he thought, before slumping back against the table.

He would try again. And again. He would not stop trying until he broke free or the Clairvoyant came for him.

***

Jasper Sitwell and his team took Edwards away in a hyperbaric chamber as doctors and technicians roamed about the bus, patching up both human and machine alike. Coulson pulled on a clean suit jacket over his recently-bound arm. He had been forced to call for further backup when he knew his team was not up to the challenge alone, risking a court martial for the Hub breakout and Agent Hand’s forever disapproving face. But that didn’t matter to him now. Centipede had Ned in their possession, and this small team of agents was not enough to take down Raina and her super soldiers.

“We’ve got to go after him, Jasper,” he said. “It has been three hours. Who knows what Centipede is doing with Ned?”

“Orders are to remain stationed until a tactical team can be arranged. We’re calling Garrett in, and he’ll be here in a couple of hours,” Sitwell replied. He looked at Coulson’s arm. “Phil, you’ve got to sit this one out.”

Coulson shook his head. He considered confiding in his fellow agent about the watches and the Animus, but something inside him made him keep quiet. Sitwell already knew about Ned and his powers, but how much had Fury told him about everything else?

“I’m sorry I shot you,” he said after a moment, trying to relieve both the tension and his own frustration. Sitwell smiled, though without kindness.

“Yeah, well, when this is all over, I get a free one.”

Coulson fidgeted, deciding to go ahead and push his luck. “Agent Fitz’s drones should be back soon. We can at least send out some scouts before the team arrives.”

“No good,” Sitwell replied, shoving his hands into his pants pockets. “Your lab toys may have survived the attack, but your team is broken. I’m not about to risk my neck leading a bruised bunch of hot heads after one of the greatest threats to SHIELD operations since Aldrich Killian.”

Coulson sighed. Why was SHIELD dragging their feet on this? He nodded reluctantly and watched as Sitwell made his way back to his own plane, presumably to interrogate Edwards.

Bits of glass and debris crunched under his feet as Coulson made his way to his office. SHIELD agents were everywhere, and he needed some time to think. He shuffled along the carpeted interior of the lounge and ascended another set of stairs, his arm throbbing in a dull ache all the while.

When he opened the door, he saw Fitzsimmons and Skye sitting on his desk.

“Hey!” he said, and the agents leapt off the furniture.

“Sorry, sir,” Simmons said. Skye seemed to be suppressing a smile. Coulson rolled his eyes and began maneuvering along the walls towards his chair, finding the space cramped with so many bodies in the room.

Fitz held up a tablet. “Two of the retrievers have sent back their data and they’re on their way home,” he said. “Some of them lost power in the field. I think the damage from the explosion must have messed them up inside.”

“I’ve input the data into my laptop,” Skye added. “Ned’s less than fifty miles away.”

Coulson briefly wondered why they would keep him so close, but quickly brushed the thought from his mind. “No good,” Coulson said, sinking into his chair and straightening his tie. “SHIELD says we have to stay put until we get authorization from Hand.”

Fitzsimmons and Skye exchanged confused looks.

“When has SHIELD protocol ever stopped us before?” Skye asked, raising her eyebrows.

“You broke into the Hub,” Simmons added. “Surely, you can sneak off the bus.”

“I thought you liked rules, Simmons?” Skye asked. Simmons smiled.

“I do,” she said. “It’s just… sometimes, it’s better to break them. Especially if one of us is in danger.” She looked at Fitz, who smiled back at her. The amount of camaraderie the three of them had showed towards Chuck and Ned warmed Coulson’s heart.

But fatigue overcame him. Coulson rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. He was exhausted, and the loss of blood was not helping him regain his strength.

“May’s down,” he said, without looking at them. “I can’t risk putting you three in danger with so little combat training.” He dropped his hands and looked at Skye. Her face was lit up with excitement, and her eyes seemed to flicker with an invisible flame that characterized her self-motivation to think outside the SHIELD protocol box. He wanted to go with her to find Ned, to see what she would do in the face of such danger. But he also wanted to keep her safe. With May down and Ward the only trained agent without a serious injury, he realized this mission was a horrible idea, even though he had begged Sitwell to allow him to scout the area just minutes before. How could he put his team under even more stress and expect them to come out on top?

“With all due respect,” Simmons said, her voice calm and controlled, “Centipede’s had Ned for hours now.”

“They could be trying to unlock his god-powers,” Fitz added.

“How do we know they haven’t already done that?” Skye asked.

“What, you think the Clairvoyant would figure that out and not make a big bang?” Fitz replied.

Coulson smiled. His agents were right. But they still didn’t know exactly how dangerous it was that Centipede had Ned. He needed to tell them about what Edwards had said about the Animus, but there was no time for a huddle.

“Get Ward,” he said, feeling a new surge of confidence. “We’ll need to figure out how to take the SUV without SHIELD stopping us.”

“Oh, he’s in his bunk, ready to go,” Skye said. Coulson raised an eyebrow in surprise. “We… kinda thought we’d be sneaking out soon so we had a meeting of our own while you were talking with Sitwell. He’s all for it.”

“May too,” Fitz added.

“She… wouldn’t say no,” Simmons chimed in, with a shrug.

Coulson couldn’t help but admire their initiative.

“And Miss Charles?” he asked, suddenly remembering his only passenger at the moment without SHIELD training of any sort.

“She’s coming with us,” Fitz announced. “I don’t think we can shoot her with the night-night gun like last time.”

“All right,” Coulson said, though reluctantly. This was going to be a disaster, but one he would gladly participate in. “I assume you have a plan, too?”

“Sort of…” Simmons said, and the three of them looked at each other nervously.

Coulson eyed the agents. “What?”

***

Ned continued to struggle against his fetters as Raina and a small band of super soldiers entered the room. He felt as if his blood had stopped flowing, and his limbs were tingling with both pain and fear.

“Soon,” was all she said. She continued to look at Ned with hungry eyes as she patiently waited for her master to arrive.

***

Coulson floored the gas pedal of the SUV, causing the tires to squeal against the floor of the cargo hold as he tore out of the bus at top speed. The movement jostled his team in their seats, and they had to hold on to the car frame to avoid hitting their heads. Chuck felt her heart leap into her throat as she braced herself against the window on her right. She was giddy… they were going after Ned, and the team had leant her a stealthy-looking black coat. She felt so official that she was almost excited to be going on a mission… except for the fact that Centipede had Ned.

May was currently picking off agents with her night-night gun, her body hanging out the passenger side window as she littered the floor of the bus with bodies as the stragglers were forced to choose between diving for cover and firing more shots at the SUV. Ward himself had taken out almost half their numbers with his own pistol, but they had failed to prevent one of the agents from placing a call to Agent Hand before they left.

“We are so going to be court martialed,” Simmons said.

“Relax,” Skye added, opening her laptop. “It’ll be fine. We’ll get Ned back and at worst, they’ll probably give us community service or something.” She looked back to where Simmons sat squeezed between Chuck and Fitz and gave her a reassuring nod.

“I really appreciate this,” Chuck started to say, “letting me come along.” She felt more timid than her usual self, as if this mission were a favor. _It shouldn’t be,_ she thought. _I have as much experience crime fighting as Skye does. I can’t hack anything, but…_

“How long until we find Ned?” Coulson asked, interrupting her thoughts. Ward grunted in the seat beside Skye, tying an emergency bandage around his arm, which had been grazed during their dash for the SUV. It made the inside of the car smell like blood and antiseptic.

“If you keep driving at this speed, about thirty minutes,” Fitz said. “Might I suggest slowing down a bit to avoid getting pulled over?”

“We have a giant SHIELD logo on the side of the car,” Coulson said. “I don’t think the police are going to follow us.”

“What about the bus?” Ward said, his voice sounding hollow due to the bandage on his broken nose. “Won’t SHIELD confiscate it? Access all our databanks?”

“I’ve got it on lockdown,” Skye replied, her eyes glued to her laptop.

Chuck became distracted as Simmons looked at her and held up two different guns, one large and black and the other small but glowing with blue rounds. It reminded her of bioluminescent fish in the deep sea. “Which would you like?” the biochemist asked.

“What’s the difference?” Chuck asked, her eyes darting from one weapon to the other.

“One delivers a potent dendrotoxin and the other is a neuromuscular paralytic delivery system.”

“What?”

“One’s a night-night gun and the other’s an impervious pistol,” Fitz translated.

“The night-night gun puts people to sleep but the other one just paralyzes their muscles,” Skye added. “They’re still conscious, but they can’t move for a few minutes.”

“The impervious pistol’s still an experiment,” Fitz said.

“I’m sure it works just fine,” Simmons said. Chuck smiled at her and reached for the gun with glowing blue rounds in it.

“I’ll take the night-night gun,” she said. “I feel a bit safer knowing that if I hit my target, he’ll be completely out.” She held the gun in her hands and let its cool exterior calm the heat of excitement on her skin. She just hoped her palms weren’t so sweaty that she’d drop it at the first sign of danger.

“Skye,” Coulson interrupted. “Talk to me.”

“Keep going on this road for another ten miles,” Skye replied. She began to tap furiously on the keys of her laptop. “I’m pulling up video feed from the base where the retrievers said Ned is located. Maybe we can get a sense of what’s going on.”

“You have wifi in this car?” Chuck asked, incredulous.

“Won’t they be able to detect you?” Ward asked, completely ignoring her.

“Maybe,” Skye said, the corners of her mouth turning up in a smirk.

As the agents were busy talking shop with one another, Chuck turned the dendrotoxin pistol in both of her hands. Until now, all the cases she had helped solve with Emerson had seemed like a game, a puzzle that she was solving as if she had simply picked up the morning paper and turned to page 7. There weren’t any stakes before. Someone was already dead, and the danger was relatively small. It seemed foolish to her that she had been so excited to put herself in danger. Now, her heart was threatening to burst from her chest, and she felt nauseous at the thought of Ned in the hands of Centipede and the woman in the flower dress. Was she near him now? Was she threatening to cut him open with her long, red fingernails?

She wasn’t jealous. The idea was silly. But Ned was in real danger, the kind that could get him killed. And she wasn’t sure that his powers could prevent it. If anything, they invited death, even before when they were happily ignorant, solving crimes in Papen County. _Yes,_ she thought, _Ned brings death, he doesn’t expel it._

But what if Centipede removed his powers and he became like any other person? Of course, Chuck told herself that she would love Ned no matter what, but would he be the same person should his magic touch suddenly disappear? It had been a part of him for so long that she wasn’t sure if Ned was Ned without it. His powers defined him – how he moved, where he went, who he talked to. They had shaped him from childhood. He started baking to remember his mother, a victim of his unfortunate re-touching rule. What would he be like if all of that was gone?

Would she still be alive if that happened? Or would expelling his power expel her life force with it?

She had to prevent Centipede from taking Ned’s powers away, if only just as a precaution for her own continued existence. Part of her felt guilty that her motivation was so self-centered, but Chuck loved being alive. She loved the smell of pies baking in the oven and the sound of buzzing bees and the way her sundress brushed against her legs as she walked down the street.

“Got a visual!” Skye exclaimed. Chuck leaned forward, her face inches from Fitz’s as they all tried to huddle around the laptop. The sight made Chuck’s heart drop. In a fairly large room, Ned was propped up vertically and bound to a metal table, obviously uncomfortable and struggling to free himself. The woman in the flower dress sat on a stool next to a table a few feet away from him, running her fingers over the three watches that lay in a row beside her.

“Visual’s no good if we don’t know where the room is,” Ward said, his voice cold.

“I’ve also got online blueprints of the building,” Skye replied. “They’re in the basement.”

“Of course,” Fitz said under his breath.

Chuck watched as the woman on the screen picked up one of the watches and popped its cover open. “Hey,” she said to Coulson. “The lady just opened one of the watches.”

She felt her body jerk backwards as Coulson stepped on the gas pedal.

“Guys,” he shouted above the roar of the engine. “Time for a little rundown about the Animus.”

***

Raina ran her thumb over the face of the watch, mesmerized by its hands _tick-ticking_ away. Ned felt a lump rise in his throat as he realized how close she was to accessing the mist that lay beneath its glimmering exterior.

“It speaks to me,” Raina said, her voice flat as if she were hypnotized. “The Animus. Can you hear it?”

“I hear nothing,” Ned replied. Was she going mad? His eyebrows knitted together in confusion as he watched her, wondering what it was she heard and fascinated by the way she was so enraptured by something as simple as a pocket watch. Ned licked his lips as she traced the initials on the device… _E.E._

“This is your father’s watch,” Raina continued, looking towards him but still holding the watch in her delicate fingers. “Did you know it still has part of the Animus in it?”

The thought surprised him. Ned shook his head. “No.” How did his father manage that? Why hadn’t his father absorbed it long ago? He was filled with so many questions, and now, it seemed like he would never have them answered.

“Seems like you only got a small part of it,” Raina continued. She looked away from him, turning her attention back to the watch and gazing at the smooth surface of its silvery exterior. She pressed a button which released the cover, revealing its pearly white face and onyx-black hands within. Ned began to wriggle with anticipation.

“What does it say?” he asked, attempting to prevent her from opening it any further. A soft _tick tick_ wafted through the air. If he could only stall her long enough…

“Come.”

“Come where?”

“I don’t know.”

She reached for something that looked like a pair of pliers that lay on the table. As she drew them to the watch, Ned began to struggle more violently. She couldn’t absorb the Animus. Not here. Not now. What would become of him if she did? What would become of the world? Ned doubted that he had the power to stop her. After all, he could only raise the dead for a minute. What would he be able to do against a god? A cold sweat broke out over his entire body.

“Uh…” he said, his voice wavering. “M-maybe you sh-shouldn’t do that. Alien artifact. It could be dangerous.”

Raina looked up at him without moving her head. She smiled lop-sidedly.

“Please,” she said, and began picking away at the watch with her pliers.

“What about your Clairvoyant?”

“He understands my allegiance to… special people,” she said. “That’s part of the reason we found you.” She leaned towards him slightly. “Did you ever think that _I_ might be special to?”

“So why do you need the Animus?”

“It’s the next stage of evolution,” she said simply, continuing to work the device. “Think of all we could do with the Animus as our guide.”

“We?”

Her device wasn’t a pair of pliers. With the touch of a button, it sent a sort of pulse through the encasement of the watch that caused it to spring open. A green mist arose from the inside, emitting a pleasant, woody smell that filled the entire room. Ned continued to struggle as it rose up around Raina and began swirling around her head, seeming to settle into the curls of her hair and rest on her eyelashes like tiny green stars. The super soldiers visibly tilted the muzzles of their guns towards her, but refrained from firing.

“No, don’t!” Ned protested, but he was helpless to prevent anything. The mist began to disappear, sinking into Raina’s pores. A warm yellow glow briefly pulsed through her veins, but it disappeared almost immediately. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, reveling in the sensation of the Animus taking over her body.

She remained motionless for what seemed like an eternity.

Ned could feel his forehead soaked with sweat and his muscles screaming for release. His heart beat so hard against his chest that he could feel a new ache spread through his ribcage with every _thump._ What was she doing?

Ten minutes passed. Fifteen.

Ned was almost convinced the Animus had shut her body down when Raina suddenly opened her eyes and looked straight at him.

“I can hear you,” she said. Ned knitted his eyebrows in confusion.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Not with your voice.”

She rose from her seat and began to walk slowly towards him. As she drew nearer, Ned could see her eyes had changed color from brown to green.

 _I can hear you,_ came a voice inside Ned’s head.

Ned froze.

_Now I am Clairvoyant._

She continued to stare at him, her eyes boring into his like two needles.

_You fear for yourself. You fear for Chuck. You fear for SHIELD._

She stepped closer.

_You will fight me._

Another step.

_You will lose._

She leaned in closer to Ned and looked into his eyes without reaching out to touch him. 

“Get out of my head,” he said, though with less confidence than he has intended. Raina smiled and bit her lower lip.

 _I think not._ The sensation was unsettling. _I think we’re going to have a little chat._

Suddenly, Ned felt his eyes began to blur and his head became dizzy.

“What are you doing to me?”

_Just taking a tour._

“How can you do that with just one part of the Animus?”

Raina suddenly straightened, her eyes glowing more emerald than before.

“You’re right,” she said aloud. “This… power. It’s only a fraction of what could be.”

Ned wanted to kick himself.

“If I could access the rest of the Animus… nothing would be in my way.”

She turned sharply towards the table and reached out a hand, as if willing the watches to come closer to her. Ned began to struggle once more, desperately scraping his wrists against his bounds. He felt the skin begin to peel off and his blood began to prickle where his flesh was torn.

“Hey,” he called. “No… please!”

Raina ignored him and picked up the second watch, holding it delicately in her slender fingers. “Soon, all shall be as it should.”

She picked up her device with the other hand and lowered it slowly to the face of the watch. Ned felt himself starting to hyperventilate, like he was watching the world fall apart before his very eyes, and nothing he could do would stop it. _This is the end,_ he thought, which made Raina chuckle. He braced himself for the impact, expecting Raina to squeeze the life from his body at any moment with the flick of her wrist. Soon, she would not need anything to end his life… only her determination.

Suddenly, a loud bang resounded from outside the lab door, sending tendrils of smoke curling through the crack where it met the floor. Ned smelled something like gunpowder, but with a more oily residue coating the inside of his nose. He sniffed and tried to rub his face on his shoulder as the super soldiers aimed their weapons at the door, with Raina spinning to face it, her hair swaying with the sudden movement of her head. 

“Your friends are here,” she said, smiling.

Ned swallowed, hope rising in his chest as worry began to seep through his veins. _She’s only telepathic, right?_ But could she anticipate each move? Would SHIELD stand a chance?

He heard a clicking sound and saw Raina trying to wrench open the watch with more hurried motions.

“Stop!” he cried, but she ignored him.

The watch face sprung open and Ned watched as a large cloud of green vapor erupted into her face, sinking delicately into her hair and skin as before. Raina inhaled deeply, relishing the sensation as her body began to glow.

“All the universe!” she exclaimed. “I can see it! Hear it! Taste it!”

She turned towards the table and dropped the empty watch on its surface.

“Just one more!”

A pounding resounded on the lab door, sending a loud _thud_ echoing through the spacious room. The super soldiers shifted their weight in anticipation, the sounds of their futuristic weapons humming amid the fury.

“No need,” Raina told them, grasping the last watch in her hand, which was now threaded with golden veins. Ned’s heart was pounding so hard now that he could no longer feel individual beats, just one, giant _smack_ against his chest, but he still grasped on for hope as he saw his adversaries become more and more uncomfortable. _Come on,_ he thought.

The lab door sprung open and a cloud of smoke poured in. Ned felt his heart leap to his throat as he eagerly searched the haze for signs of a familiar face. _Coulson!_ he thought desperately. _May! Ward! Skye!_

“They can’t help you!” Rained sneered.

Flashes of blue shot through the smoke and buried themselves in the vests of the super soldiers nearest to the door. Some of them dropped to the ground, but others leapt backwards, searching for cover amidst the array of tables and various technical equipment. Ned felt his breathing grow heavier and his neck become slick with sweat.

“Put the watch down, Raina!” came a voice. Ned’s spirits began to rise. _Coulson!_

“Coulson,” she said, calmly. Ned watched as Coulson, May, and Ward appeared in the doorway, each one holding a pistol filled with glowing blue rounds before them. He noticed that May favored her right leg, where he had seen the bullet go through her flesh in the earlier invasion. How could she be functioning? Wouldn’t she jeopardize this operation?

 _She cares about you,_ Ned heard Raina’s voice echo in his head. _They all do. They’re all here for you._

“All?” Ned wondered aloud.

May and Ward immediately ducked to each side, seeking out places of cover should the super soldiers begin to fire at them. Ned’s heart seemed to stop as he saw the others follow them, each carrying weapons and portable cases… Fitz, Simmons, Skye… Chuck.

“Chuck!” he wanted to scream, but his voice was more of a harsh whisper. She was here. She came for him. Part of him was surging with admiration, which lessened the ache in his chest and filled him with new hope. But Chuck being here was more dangerous than anything… more than the bombing, more than the attack on the plane. What would a god do to her?

 _Wait and see,_ Raina said.

***

Simmons began fiddling with one of her cases as Fitz, Chuck, and Skye ducked behind fixtures and counters beside her. She was hurriedly trying to piece together their newest tech, hoping against all odds that it would work on Raina and the Animus that now possessed her body.

“We can fix this,” she heard Coulson say, his voice steady and pleading but without sounding desperate. “Put down the watch and we can find a way to get the Animus out of you.”

Simmons peeked over the counter. “No!” Fitz whispered, grasping her by the arm and trying to pull her back down. She shook him off and continued to watch, spellbound.

“Why would I want that?” Raina asked, but she cocked her head and smiled. “You think I don’t want this… but guess what? _I_ am the Clairvoyant now. _I_ am a god!”

She crushed the watch in her hand, releasing the last cloud of green mist into the air.

Simmons heard a _pop_ as Coulson shot a few rounds, but even as they buried themselves in Raina’s body, the green mist swirled about her, settling on her like a delicate cloak. It would have been pretty if the effects didn’t terrify Simmons so much. She knew what would happen… Raina was a god now. What chance did they have against her? The blue lights of the dendrotoxin rounds flickered and died, and Raina’s skin began to glow brighter and brighter, spurring Simmons to look away and begin assembling the tech from her case faster and faster.

“Simmons!” Skye said. “Hurry up!”

Her hands trembled. “I’m working on it!”

Fitz grasped her fingers in his. “Let me do it. I’m faster anyway.” He took the pieces from her and began to assemble them, freeing Simmons to look back over the counter.

Raina had not moved. No one had. Coulson still kept his pistol aimed at her body, and Simmons could see Ward and May doing the same from their corners of the room.

“Oh, Coulson,” Raina said, her voice carrying through the wide lab almost effortlessly. “If only you could see.” She paused, and her face fell. Simmons’ eyes widened in curious fascination but also in fear as she watched their foe emit bright golden light. What was happening that caused her to be so suddenly disheartened? “You…” Raina said. She reached out a hand towards Coulson and made a squeezing motion, as if trying to choke him from afar. But nothing happened. “I see what you will do… but…” She turned to Ned. “One last piece. One more and I can stop it.”

“What is she talking about?” Skye asked. Simmons shook her head and watched in horror as Raina made her way towards Ned.

“Raina!” Coulson called. “Don’t touch him!” When she ignored him, May and Ward began to fire, spurring the super soldiers to begin firing back. The lab erupted into a firestorm, the sound of bullets echoing throughout the room, ricocheting off of the concrete walls and blowing chunks of plastic and metal off of the counters around them. Skye bravely stood up just enough to fire a few shots before ducking back down again.

“Simmons, get down!” Fitz said, but she did not pay attention to him. Her eyes were fixed on Ned and Raina. The bullets didn’t seem to have any effect on Raina as she reached out a hand and grabbed Ned by the neck.

“The last piece,” she said. 

“No,” Simmons whispered.

***

Raina’s hand was choking him, and Ned felt her fingernails digging into his soft flesh. Terrified, he gasped for air as she stared directly into him, seemingly into his very soul. His insides burned, and he watched in horror as her eyes begin to glow with a blazing hot white light, obscuring her pupils and scorching his face as they glowed brighter and brighter.

 _Give it to me,_ Ned heard her say, and immediately, he felt something within him move. His arms, his legs, his chest… all the way through his fingers and toes – it was as if his skeleton was being torn from his body. He opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out.

 _The Animus,_ Raina thought. _It shall be whole._

The searing pain caused Ned’s blood to boil, and he felt his head grow dizzy. He tried to close his eyes against the burning light, but he could not find the energy to resist.

Suddenly, the pain stopped.

 _No!_ he heard a voice in his head. Raina’s eyes suddenly lost their light, returning not to green, but to her original brown. Ned looked at her curiously as she looked down at her own hand, as if surprised by what it was doing. He looked as well, and saw that the golden glow was rushing through her veins under her skin, pooling into her arm and wrist.

“What’s happening?” she said aloud. She made a motion as if trying to let go of Ned’s neck, but her hand remained clamped tight around his throat. The glow began to rush into the back of her hand and spiral into her fingers. Suddenly, Ned knew what was happening, and his eyes widened in fear.

“Oh, no no no no!” he whispered, barely able to make any sound from the pressure on his windpipe. The glow shot out from Raina’s fingertips and seeped into Ned’s skin, the sensation oddly like dripping hot wax, only more scorching. It burned so hotly that Ned grimaced, letting out a weak cry as the glow slowly slipped into his body. He felt as if his whole self was on fire, inside and out. A tear slipped from the corner of his left eye as the burning spread from his neck down, creeping into his veins and spreading throughout his limbs like molten lava, sludging along his spine and wrapping itself around his bones.

“What are you doing?” Raina asked desperately. Ned peeked through his eyelids and saw the skin of his arms becoming coated in something like liquid gold, dripping down from his shoulders and encasing his hands in a metallic sheet. _What’s happening to me?_

When his lower body had been coated, he felt the burning begin to creep up his neck.

_Oh no._

Raina let go of him, and he was suddenly able to breathe.

 _Stop!_ he thought desperately, as if the metallic gold could hear him.

 _NO,_ a deep, inhuman voice echoed in his head. It startled Ned so much that he held his breath, wondering if the voice was his own inner speech or if it was something else… darker and more sinister. But he had no time to find out. He craned his neck as if trying to keep his head away from the flames that licked his skin, but there was no escape from it. It reached up and grasped at his face like fingers, hooking long strands of gold on the corners of his mouth and the lids of his eyes. Even his hair felt like it was a blazing flame atop his head.

_Chuck._

His last thought echoed in his head as the fire took over and plunged his sight into a brilliant white light, obscuring everything around him and sinking his body into a pit of unbelievable pain.


	23. Interlude 11

The stars their light takes so long to reach earth but in other worlds their light is ever present and eternal as I am eternal and these humans are limited by their time and their sight they cannot see anything yet I see everything because there is no time there is no past or future there is only now and always will be now with billions of stars and I can see their hearts dying always dying like these humans are dying but their light doesn’t reach through space and time as the stars’ so why should they fight when all they are will soon extinguish and leave nothing not even a glimmer in the darkness billions of lightyears away so they think they are the only ones but when Thanos shows them they are not they do not see but I see everything and their futures are dim not even a flicker on the map of the universe there are so many worlds with brighter futures than this one and these men think they are heading for the future but they are past all is past I will crush them in my hands and show them they are not alone they cannot control the universe they are nothing compared to me.


	24. Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ned and the Animus are out of control.

Simmons watched as Ned became still, his head bowed, like he had passed out. Raina backed away from him, holding her hands in front of her as if to protect herself – but from what?

“What’s happened?” Chuck asked, her knuckles growing white around the handle of her gun. Simmons shook her head.

“I’m not sure,” she replied. “He’s just… asleep.”

No one moved. The gunfire had stopped. Every eye was directed towards the table to which Ned was strapped.

“Well, Ned’s got the Animus now,” Skye reasoned. “Maybe that means we’re in the clear?”

“Yeah, Ned wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Chuck added.

“I’m not so sure,” Simmons said, sliding her hand along the counter where she crouched. “Fitz, is that pistol ready? Just in case?”

“Impervious Pistol is go,” he whispered.

“You think that’s actually going to work?” Skye said. Simmons shrugged.

“At this point, it’s all we’ve got.”

A minute elapsed, and Ned still hadn’t moved. His skin was glowing, as if he were coated in molten gold, and his hair looked like a bundle of golden threads sweeping his face like a delicate silk sheet. The sight aroused Simmons’ desire for scientific inquiry. What was he now? What made him glow like that? If he weren’t so dangerous, she would like nothing better than to test him in her lab.

But the sense of danger always won out. As fascinated as she was, Simmons knew they had to destroy whatever it was that was now possessing Ned’s body. Even if he never moved again, what organizations would stop at nothing to awaken the cosmic force in him? What could be done with just a sliver of that power? Should Centipede take a hair from his head, what power would be unlocked? No, they had to destroy it. But how could they do so without destroying Ned?

Suddenly, his head snapped up and he opened his eyes. Simmons gasped. They were hardly eyes at all, but two beams of impossibly bright white light that seemed to illuminate the aura around him. With a loud _snap,_ Ned broke through his bonds and stepped off of the table, his skin glowing gold and sparkling on his face around his eyes.

“Animus,” Simmons heard Raina say. He looked at her intensely, but made no movements. Simmons felt her throat go dry. Was this Ned? Or something else? It didn’t move like Ned, and it most certainly didn’t look like him. Raina reached out a hand to touch him, but he grasped her wrist in his molten fingers, eliciting a small cry from her lips. _Definitely not Ned,_ Simmons thought.

The sudden movement prompted the super soldiers to begin firing, and Simmons watched as Ned threw Raina to the ground and absorbed the bullets as if they were no more than puffs of air. With horror, she saw him raise a hand, reach out to one of them, and make a squeezing motion that caused the soldier to drop to the ground. The others continued to fire.

“Is he dead?” Skye yelled over the gunfire.

“Let’s not wait around to find out,” Fitz replied. Simmons looked over her shoulder and saw Chuck had clasped a hand over her mouth in shock.

Ned walked a few steps and grabbed another Centipede soldier by the throat, turning his white eyes to bore into the man’s body as he plunged his fingers into the soft flesh of his neck. The man screamed as Ned gritted his teeth together, causing his victim’s skin to glow gold for a brief moment – like the corpses did when Ned used to touch them.

“What’s he doing?” Chuck yelled.

A light began to seep out through the soldier’s pores, stretching in long twists and becoming sucked into the blaze of Ned’s eyes. They glowed brighter, and when no more light came from the soldier’s body, Ned released him with a _thud._

“He’s stealing their life energies,” Simmons said, her heart racing from what she had just witnessed.

“We have to put him down,” Fitz said, cocking the Impervious Pistol. “Before he absorbs any one of us.”

“Not just us,” Simmons replied. “What could he do if he got away from here?” She looked around her for a dendrotoxin pistol.

“Whatever happens, Ned is still inside that thing,” Skye instructed. “If we can put down some of these Centipede guys, Ned might stop long enough so we can talk to him.”

“Right!” Chuck replied, standing up briefly to launch a few rounds at a nearby soldier. She managed to hit one in the arm before ducking back down behind the corner. Simmons couldn’t help but smile at her courage despite the danger they were in.

“Come on!” Skye yelled, grabbing Chuck by the sleeve and pulling her as the two of them made a dash for another cover. Fitz grabbed Simmons by the arm.

“We need a better angle,” he said. “I don’t think either of us can hit Ned from here.” Simmons nodded and looked around the lab.

“Can we make it behind the table where Ned was tied?” she asked.

“Let’s find out!”

***

The Animus moved Ned’s body like a puppet pulling strings. How heavy, how cumbersome was this motion. If only it could float about, free as it was meant to do. But it needed this body on this plane to survive outside the prison.

It wanted souls. It wanted to suck them through the eyes of Ned’s enemies. Everything was hunger and pain and desire and nothing would stop it from taking what it wanted. The Animus made its avatar body smile as it reached out and drew the soul out of another soldier with grace and finesse, reveling at the sensation of its absorption into itself. It felt Ned’s body grow hotter as the soldier’s life energy fed the fire of the Animus’ own power. The body rippled with pleasure, exhaling with a smile as a surge of energy rushed through its veins.

Somewhere, deep inside, Ned’s consciousness resided. At first it was horror: the Animus had to struggle against this mortal’s mind for control of the body. But it was weak, and it was no large task to overcome the frail human mind. _You will soon learn,_ the Animus thought, _how inconsequential mortals are._

Another soul. Another surge. The Animus looked around after the body dropped to the floor. There were at least a dozen more souls in this room, counting the humans Ned seemed to have an affinity towards. How many would it absorb before Ned realized how meaningless they were and joined it?

It looked and saw a man with dark hair and a broken nose preparing to fire on a soldier poised to attack the Animus’ host body. _Let’s start with this one,_ the Animus thought. _Let’s show Ned how much better the world would be without this soul._

***

Ward slammed his elbow into the nose of one of the super soldiers, knocking him to the ground and halting his firing upon Ned. With a quick flick of his wrist, Ward yanked his second dentrotoxin pistol from his holster and shot a dart at his fallen enemy, rendering him unconscious immediately.

May had abandoned her pistol and was engaging in hand to hand combat, taking down another soldier who had made a move towards Ned with a larger gun. She was obviously not at her best, favoring her leg and wincing as she moved, but Ward could not help but be thoroughly impressed that she was still able to take down her enemies, as wounded as she was. He would have to remember how dangerous she was if they ever got into a fight; but now, another super soldier turned his attention towards her and raised his weapon, aiming directly at May’s heart. In a panic, Ward grabbed a knife from his boot and threw it, watching as it expertly spun end over end and buried itself in the soldier’s forearm. The man grunted in pain and lowered his weapon just enough so that it landed a bullet in the floor, creating a huge crater in the tiles. Ward raised his pistol and dropped the soldier with a blue round.

“Impressive,” he heard a voice say. He turned to see that Ned had crept up beside him, standing a mere arm’s length away. His skin was so gold that Ward couldn’t help but be amazed by it – it was so bright and brilliant that Ned’s body seemed statuesque, like it wasn’t supposed to be moving but it glided about the room nonetheless.

However, it was the eyes that really rooted Ward to the spot. Just looking at them made his face burn, and the heat caused him to break out in a thin layer of sweat over his whole body. They pierced Ward to the bone and caused his chest to constrict, making his breath come in short bursts as his fingers curled protectively around his dendrotoxin pistol.

“Thanks,” Ward replied, unsure of what to do. The figure looked sort of like Ned, but it was not at all familiar to him. Ward found himself staring at him curiously, and he was distracted momentarily, thereby allowing Ned to reach out a hand and grab Ward by the arm, sending a searing pain throughout his entire body. Ward cried out in pain, and he thought he heard Fitz cry his name, but his head was becoming too dizzy to think about that.

“Ned, let go.”

“I see who you are,” Ned sneered, his voice metallic and inhuman. Ward was filled with so much pain that he could no longer stand, and he dropped to a knee on the floor. Ned still gripped him, refusing to release his hold.

“What do you mean?” Ward asked through gritted teeth.

“I see you, Grant Ward. I see who you _really_ are.” He drew his face closer. “You are a poison… a part of a gigantic beast. A serpent that lives in the caves beneath the earth. And you will fail.”

In a panic, Ward grabbed another gun – one with actual bullets – from his belt and shoved the muzzle into Ned’s abdomen, pulling at the trigger desperately as the _pops_ from his weapon and the flashes of his gun sliced through Ned’s body. He felt such inexplicable rage as he continued to fire, over and over again until the magazine was empty. _How dare he?_ The burning from Ned’s touch gave way to seething hatred inside of him, and he felt his breath quicken as he futilely tried to divert Ned’s gaze from the innermost depths of his soul.

“You fight because you think you matter,” Ned said, the bullets ineffective against him. “You think that if your friends found out, everything you’ve worked for would be undone. But nothing you do will have the slightest impact upon the movement of the universe.” He leaned in closer, his face so near to Ward that he felt his skin begin to blister. “There are bigger things than you.”

“So why bother with me?” Ward said, his voice barely audible for the pain he was in. “Let me go.”

Ned smiled and pressed his hand into Ward’s chest.

***

Simmons and Fitz ducked behind the metal table as the room around them continued to erupt in chaos. May and Coulson were busy fending off super soldiers, who proved more resilient than they had originally anticipated, and Skye and Chuck were doing their best to fire dentrotoxin rounds at their foes without hitting members of their own team. The air contained a strange mixture of the scent of blood, gunpowder, and pine, like they were fighting in a warzone… though to Simmons, it was more reminiscent of ancient warfare. She wrinkled her nose against the aroma as she gently placed her fingertips on the cool metal, which felt strangely comforting against everything that was happening around her.

Fitz held the Impervius Pistol in his hands.

“Okay, I fire this,” he said, “and Ned drops to the ground?”

“In theory,” Simmons replied, tapping her fingers against the table nervously. “I originally designed it to work on us, but I guess it could work on him.”

“In theory?”

“Well, I haven’t been able to test it, have I?” Her cheeks flushed pink.

“You’re right. So, I hit Ned, his energy becomes contained in his body, he stops hurting people?”

“For a few minutes, as most.”

“I’ll take that.”

“But who knows if it will even work? Ned doesn’t even seem human anymore. You saw what happened with those ICER rounds… or rather, what didn’t happen.”

They heard a cry and saw that Ned had grabbed hold of Ward.

“Ward!” Fitz yelled. His cry did nothing to distract Ned, who continued to inflict pain on their friend as Ward lowered himself to the ground. Simmons saw Fitz raise the weapon and point it around the cover of the table.

“Wait!” Simmons said, grabbing onto Fitz’s shoulder. He looked back at her.

“He’s hurting Ward,” he said. “What do you want me to do?”

Simmons felt her mind toss about in conflict, as if she were a raft afloat on a tempestuous sea – only this sea was one of fire and all around her was unspeakable violence. Ward was in danger… but wasn’t Ned as well? Would this new pistol work or just make things worse for the team?

“What if he gets angry and kills him?” Simmons pleaded. Her heart was fluttering in her chest.

“He’s killing him now!” Fitz said, his voiced edged with desperation. Simmons sighed and tried to steady herself. He was right. She was worried… but not so much for Ward as for Fitz. Would Ned turn on them if he felt the Impervious rounds dig into his flesh? How would she and Fitz escape him if he did turn to them? There was nothing they could do, and Fitz was right. It would be better to help Ward than to just sit back and watch a friend die.

They heard a distinctive _popping_ noise and watched in disbelief as Ward emptied a magazine into Ned’s body, which incredibly had no effect whatsoever. _Why would Ward do that? He must be desperate._ Simmons’ spirits dropped. If bullets could do nothing, what chance did their new serum have?

“I don’t think it will work,” she said. Fitz inhaled deeply through his nose.

“We have to try,” he said. “Even if that means Ned comes at us. I won’t sit back and watch my friends get hurt. And I won’t let him get you, either. If he turns on us, you run.”

He gave Simmons no time to reply as he raised his arm and stepped out from behind the table, aiming the pistol at Ned’s back. Simmons placed a hand on his lower back in reassurance.

“Both eyes open,” Fitz whispered. But before he could fire, Simmons heard another loud _pop,_ and felt a spray of warm fluid cover her face and sink into the fibers of her shirt. A metallic taste filled her mouth – copper. Her heart fluttered as she looked down at herself, holding her hands out in disbelief as she observed the red blood that covered her body and dripped down her face. _I’m shot,_ she thought. _Strange, I feel no pain._ She looked up, as if Fitz could possibly explain to her how she felt, but to her surprise, she saw him waver and collapse to the ground, dropping the pistol as he fell. Her heart immediately leapt to her throat, and she felt as if her ribcage was compressing around her lungs.

“Fitz!” she yelled, kneeling beside him. As she gathered him up in her arms, she briefly looked up to see Raina, still holding a gun in her hand and smiling slightly from her place a few feet away. She tried to fire at them again, but the weapon only let out a hollow click. Empty.

Simmons shook her head as her heart began to race. She frantically looked over Fitz’s body, searching for the wound in an almost blind panic. _No!_ she thought, struggling to keep calm. After all the wounds she had patched up, she had thought she would be more calm, but this was Fitz. This was her best friend. He was a tangle of blood, and tears began to blur her vision as her fingers explored his limbs. After what seemed like ages, her eyes finally rested on the hole that had formed in his chest. Tears streaming down her face, she pressed her palms to the wound, hoping to place enough pressure on it to save him.

“No!” she said, her voice choked with tears. Blood pooled around her fingers, and she felt Fitz’s breath stop beneath her touch.

“Jemma,” he said, and his eyes went blank.

She screamed.

***

The scream snapped the Animus from its absorption of Ward’s soul and caused it to spin around, looking at where Fitz had fallen and Simmons sat crying over his body. It released Ward and walked over to them, silently passing Raina as it glided inhumanly across the floor. It could see Fitz’s soul in the ether. His energy. Everything he was now wafted into the air and swirled about the room in the most brilliant colors that the Animus had ever seen. But it was the only one who could see it, the only one who understood what it meant.

As the Animus watched Simmons grasp the body of her friend in her arms, it felt Ned’s humanity trickle through and mingle with his consciousness. It felt an odd affection towards her, something that had ceased once Ned had absorbed it. Everyone in this lab was meaningless, mere matter compared to the extent of the universe, yet seeing Simmons’ tears touched something in the Animus that brought it into the present, inside of time.

“He is part of the universe now,” the Animus said. “His soul is everywhere.” Simmons looked up, her tears making streaks through the spatter of blood on her face. The Animus wanted to touch the trails they made, to show her that death was nothing, but she seemed surprised to see it there.

“He is my friend. My best friend.”

“All that he is continues in time. Now. Past. Future. Let me show you.” It reached a hand out to her, but she recoiled. Simmons’ face hardened and she quickly leapt to her feet, careful to make sure Fitz’s head rested delicately on the floor. She took a step towards the Animus, not close enough to touch it, but as a gesture of authority. She was obviously shaking with nervousness, but the Amimus saw that she was also resolute.

“Bring him back,” she commanded simply.

“If only you could see as I do.”

“I don’t care. Bring him back now, Ned! I know you still have powers of resurrection!”

“Yes.”

“Then bring him back to me! I don’t care about the consequences, just bring him home!”

“He is in the ether now.”

“Then take me! Take my life energy and put it in him!”

The Animus felt that hunger inside again, raising up and wanting to devour the woman’s life energy. Its eyes blazed hotter and he reached out to touch her, intent on ripping her soul from her body. _Yes,_ it thought, its desire so strong that it made the body’s heart race in anticipation. The pleasure it would bring to feel Simmons’ soul being torn from its body, to mingle it with the energy within and send that rush throughout the body’s limbs. If it were human, the Animus would be salivating, but instead, it just felt the gold of its skin shimmer with the energy of all it had consumed before.

And best of all, deep inside, it could feel Ned beginning to anticipate the consumption too.

***

Chuck fired a round and miraculously hit a soldier in the arm, causing him to stagger and sink to the floor. Immediately, she felt herself swell with pride.

“Come on, dead girl!” Skye shouted. “We’ve gotta drop way more than that!”

Chuck made a face at her upon hearing her old moniker. “That’s the second one I’ve got!”

“Yeah, and there’s a whole lot more!”

Chuck looked around the lab. Skye was right. There were at least a dozen more super soldiers up on their feet, and Coulson and May seemed to be running out of steam. Ward lay on the floor, crippled with pain, and two more soldiers had turned their attention towards her, intent on ridding her of her weapon. Chuck suddenly felt panic. The enemy was approaching, and for the first time since she arrived, she felt her confidence wane. _Two hits? Pathetic._

What she needed was something more… a more powerful weapon that could take them all out and put a stop to Ned’s antics.

But what?

She became so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t hear Skye shouting at her.

“What are you doing?” she yelled. “Chuck!”

 _What do I do?_ Chuck searched her memory. Ned. The Animus. Her second life. Adam Warlock. The 0-8-4. Sherry Frost. The Phoenix. Something she’d heard must help them.

“Chuck!” Skye shot another soldier, but hit it in the bulletproof vest.

“Just a minute!”

“Dead girl, I’m about to be really mad at you!”

Chuck’s heart beat faster and faster. If only she had more time.

“Chuck!” Skye screamed. “We are going to die and no touching is gonna bring you back, now please! Help me!”

Chuck began to panic. She didn’t want to die, not here or now while Ned was possessed by some cosmic force. She closed her eyes and began to focus all her energy on her core, trying to hang on to it as if she could protect her life force with the strength of her determination. She remembered her death, the feeling of the plastic bag wrapping around her head and sticking to her teeth as she tried to breathe. She remembered the sensation of falling, falling into blackness and floating away into an endless sleep. She remembered feeling warm and opening her eyes to see Ned’s face above her as she lay in her casket. She wanted to stay warm and alive, and all this conflict brought her face to face with the icy cold darkness of eternal sleep.

Suddenly, she felt that warmth of life ignite all over her body.

***

The Animus reached out to Simmons, ignoring her protests in order to show her the pain she would feel if Fitz were to return from the afterlife. But before it could touch her, suddenly, the room was filled with a bright, white light. It was so bright that the Animus had to shield its avatar with its arm. It burned, even for it, and it felt the body’s muscles ripple beneath the skin as if a tidal wave were rushing through it. _Strange,_ it thought. _Why did I not see this?_

When the light subsided, everything in the room had been frozen in time. Whereas the Animus before had seen past, present, and future all at once, all existing simultaneously in its mind, the current vision was puzzling. The soldiers stood with their weapons pointed towards its body, Raina crouched with her hand blocking her face, May hovered in midair, just about to land a kick to her attacker. The Animus looked around, unable to grasp what was happening. It hadn’t done this… so who had?

“Ned,” came a voice. The Animus spun around to see the girl called Chuck standing before it, her eyes glowing white and a train of fire draping from her hair and down her back, pooling around her feet on the floor. The flames licked at the side of her face and wrapped around her ankles and calves, but she did not burn. The Animus felt something stir inside it, and it reached out a hand to touch her, to make sure she was real.

“Chuck?” he asked, his humanity briefly peering through the force that lived inside him. All of his sight melted away, and he only existed here and now, in the present, with the figure of the woman he loved before him. His heart fluttered in his chest, the first sign of emotion since absorbing the Animus. Chuck shook her head, streams of gold dripping down her face like tears.

“I am the Phoenix,” she said. “I am merely using this body for a time.” The heat radiating off of her body was such that it made Ned begin to sweat, but it didn’t seem to bother her at all.

“How…?”

“Chuck has been to the afterlife before,” the entity explained. “The woman Jean Gray touched it with her mind years ago, bringing me in contact with this world for the first time. Since then I’ve had a certain connection with those who have visited the afterlife. I can sense their pain.”

Ned nodded, trying to grasp this revelation. Chuck could summon the Phoenix? But why didn’t he see it when he peered into the cosmos?

“You cannot see me because I am separate from this universe,” the Phoenix said, as if reading his thoughts. “The powers of the Animus are great, but you are not a god, Ned. You can only see into the souls of this universe.”

“What do you mean?”

“With the Animus alone, you can only control that which exists in this reality.”

Ned nodded and bowed his head, struggling to wrap his mind around what he had learned. The Animus alone? Could he accumulate other powers? This being… the Phoenix… was she more powerful than he? He briefly considered that she might be a threat, rather than an ally, but the thought melted away as quickly as it had come.

“I know what you are thinking,” the Phoenix said. “That we are equals. True, we have the same powers, but your powers only exist here whereas I can retain my powers across universes and realities.”

So she was more powerful than him. He began to tremble, though from fear or anger, he couldn’t determine which. He began to think of other ways he could gain more power, which darkened his thoughts and started eating away at him from the inside.

“Look at your hands, Ned,” the Phoenix said. He did so, observing the way the metallic red gold of his skin dazzled brilliantly in the light of the flames. “Is this what you want?” He balled his hands into fists.

“I can protect her,” he said sadly. “With this power, and other powers, I can protect Chuck more than I ever could as someone who could only raise the dead. Anyone who comes after her… I can take their souls. Raising the dead brought this chaos on her. I’ll not have her dying because of it.”

The Phoenix took a step towards him, liquid gold pouring from her white eyes in thick streams. “And if you could be free? If all the chaos could melt away?”

His heart thudded against his chest. “Tell me.”

“Come with me,” she said, reaching out a slender hand. “Come with me to the White Hot Room.”

“What is that?”

“It is a realm apart from this world, yet intimately entwined with it. It is the nexus of reality and the heart of creation, where all souls go to live and to die when they grow weary of this plane.”

“I still do not understand.”

“No matter. You will be free from this world and the conflict of these mortals will be inconsequential.”

“Can I take Chuck?”

The Phoenix dropped her hand.

“It is not her time,” she explained. “She may join you after her death, but not before. This world will still need her. Come with me, and it will be a short time to wait.”

He hesitated. Could he leave her here, alone, without his protection? He couldn’t bear the thought of being parted from her for a lifetime, just waiting for her to die, watching her fall in love with someone else, being so happy without him. It was selfish, and it made Ned’s chest feel constricted, yet Ned wanted to be with her more than anything. He looked to the Phoenix.

“Can I stay here?” he asked. “I can protect her. These powers… I can use them to end all suffering.”

The Phoenix sighed. “Everything with these powers is infinite. No future. No past. The longer you have these powers, the faster she will become nothing to you.”

“At least she could be safe,” he retorted. He felt his ribcage ignite with burning flame. The Phoenix stepped towards him, her brilliant train of fire swirling about her and flickering against his golden skin. Ned exhaled as their eyes locked together, four beams of light creating infinite fractals that scattered about them into the reaches of the universe. His skin burned in her presence.

“If you will not come with me,” the Phoenix said, “remain here. Put the Animus back into its prison. If you do that, all your power would be gone and you could feel Chuck’s skin on yours without fear.”

The Phoenix grasped Ned’s hand in hers, tangling their fingers together in a fiery grip. The heat flowed into his hand and caused his veins to prickle, and with every beat of his heart, the warmth spread throughout his entire body. Ned found himself breathing heavily as the Phoenix drew closer and closer.

“Will she live?” Ned asked, causing the Phoenix to halt her advance. “If the Animus is gone, will she continue to be alive?”

“As if she had never died.”

He wanted to consent. Hadn’t he wished for this since he’d brought Chuck back to life? It seemed an easy choice, to immediately agree, to pour all of these godlike powers back into their holding cells and imprison them forever, away from himself and the life he always dreamed of.

But rather than exciting him, the thought gave him pause. Did he want to give up this power? Now that he had it, now that he had tasted the elixir of time and space, could see into people’s souls and extract their truths, did he want to give it all away? It was intoxicating, and it saffroned the air like a bold spice, turning the world around him into a plate to be devoured. The air was no longer empty space, it was a palette of colors that extended beyond time. Ripping those souls from those Centipede soldiers was more satisfying than any sensation Ned had ever felt, and when he thought about it, Ned felt his body yearning to do it again, the ache inside him like a ravaging hunger.

“I _will not_ give up this power!” he roared, letting go of the Phoenix’s hand and stepping away from her. The emotion caused a flame to erupt all over his body, encasing him in its furious anger. A heat rippled through his veins, but rather than filling him with the rush he expected, it pained him. His limbs began to feel like wax and his skin blistered, causing Ned to wince without crying out.

“If you remain here with the power, it will corrupt you until all that remains is a shell,” the Phoenix warned. “You will no longer be Ned. You will be the Animus. And someone will come for you… they will always be coming for you… and Chuck.”

He looked down at his hands. The flames died away.

“What am I doing?” he whispered. He looked up. “Please… take it.” The Phoenix smiled.

“I can help you,” she replied, taking his hand in hers once more. “Hold on to your feelings for Chuck and you will remember who you are until you can put the Animus back in its prison.”

Ned could feel tears of fire forming at the corners of his eyes.

“What must I do?” he begged, looking up at the Phoenix.

“Put the Animus back in the watches,” she said, “and hide them away where no one can find them.”

“How?”

“Once you figure out a way to separate it from your body, I will help you.”

“Can’t you just do that?”

The Phoenix frowned. “I was not always light,” she said. “Like the Animus, I too am inclined towards darkness. The woman Jean Gray had my darkness, and it almost destroyed everything.” She paused, as if trying to push the memories from her thoughts. Ned felt guilty for asking for so much help. “If I separate you from the Animus myself, there is a chance I will fall into that darkness. You must do that yourself. Once it is gone, I can restore you.”

Ned sighed. She was being frustratingly vague. _Typical,_ he thought.

“One thing,” the Phoenix added. “Something that will make my job easier.”

“What?”

“Think of Chuck!”

 _Helpful,_ Ned thought. The Phoenix put a hand on Ned’s cheek before the flames began to glow so brightly that Ned had to once again shield his eyes. The heat burned so intensely that he felt as if a thousand red irons were being shoved through his body. He gritted his teeth together.

When he opened his eyes, the scene had resumed around him, but his mind was clear. He saw his friends in danger around him: Coulson, May, and Skye fending off Centipede soldiers; Ward collapsed on the floor, holding his hand to his heart in pain; Simmons screaming at Ned with tears in her eyes as Fitz lay in a bloody pool on the floor. He looked around for Chuck, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“Chuck?” he called, but no one seemed to notice him.

The infinite sight began to creep back in at the edges of his vision, sending a searing pain through his head.

“No,” he whispered. “I will know who I am.” He thought of Chuck and the time he first saw her when he was a little boy, how her playfulness made him want to be around her always, how years later, just the thought of her made his heart race. The sight momentarily subsided, and Ned was able to address the world around him.

He spun around to face Simmons, who looked as if she were about to hit him. Her face was splattered with blood, and her eyes were ablaze with fury and pain, making her look savage and dangerous. Ned held out his golden hand.

“I can save him,” he said. Simmons blinked in confusion.

“You… you just said-“

“I know.”

He brushed her aside and knelt beside Fitz’s fallen body.

“Jemma,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

He reached out a hand and touched the cooling corpse, which caused a rush of energy to flow through him and sent a warm glow flashing through Fitz’s limbs. The fallen agent’s eyes popped open and he inhaled with a long gasp, as if emerging breathless from the ocean. Simmons let out a cry and wrapped her arms around Fitz’s neck, pulling him up to a sitting position. The engineer enclosed her in his arms and they began to rock back and forth, Simmons crying with relief and Fitz just happy to see her face again.

But the use of the Animus’ powers were almost enough to plunge Ned back into the depths of the sight, and he gritted his teeth against the pain in his head.

 _Chuck,_ he thought, trying desperately to cling on to his humanity. He pushed the pain from his thoughts and tried instead to focus on Chuck’s appearance: her hair, her eyes, the way she smiled when he did something to please her. He tried to capture every detail about her in his mind’s eye.

After a few seconds, Fitz abruptly pushed Simmons away.

“Wait,” he said, “Ned.” His eyes met Ned’s and immediately, Ned could see into his soul, how he loved his team, how he cared for Simmons. But such things were not a topic for discussion now. “You brought me back,” Fitz continued. “Who has to die in my place?”

Ned looked at Simmons and saw into her soul, saw how completely overwhelmed she was, how she felt so lost without her companion. He also saw how serious she was when she said she didn’t care about the consequences. She didn’t care who had to die to bring Fitz back, even if it was herself. Ned resolved to never tell Fitz about her determination or her careless dismissal of the one-minute rule.

“No one,” Ned replied, looking back at Fitz. “I can control it now. The energy within you is your own, plucked from the ether and restored to you.”

“Oh. Great,” Fitz replied. Simmons smiled even brighter.

“Now,” Ned said, wincing as a sharp pain seared through his brain like a needle, “please. I need you to get those watches.”

“The watches?” Simmons asked, her face twisted in confusion. “Why?”

“I need to put the Animus back in them before it takes over again.”

“Right,” Fitz said with a nod. As he began to rise, Simmons grasped his arm tightly to help him up. “Bloody hell, I’m alright,” he said, in jest. They scurried away to look for the watches.

Ned still felt he had work to do. All around him was violence, and he did not want to waste another minute, for every second that passed was another that he could snap back into the Animus and lose himself, putting everyone in danger. He winced again as his vision became murkier and another pain racked his head.

He reached out a metallic gold hand and made a motion in the air, grasping the energy in the bodies around him, as if he were to take the souls of the Centipede soldiers. With much effort, he kept the Animus at bay, fighting against the hunger that was stirring within him as he selectively immobilized the bad guys long enough for the rest of the agents to knock them unconscious with special blue darts filled with the most effective of tranquilizers. They fell to the floor in sleep, peacefully dreaming of their evil plan to take over the world.

“You will become ordinary.”

Ned spun around to see Raina standing behind him, her hair disheveled from crouching behind counters. She had escaped his pulse, and she now held a gun in her hand, but did not make an attempt to point it at him.

“That’s all I ever wanted to be,” Ned replied. Raina snickered. He leaned in close to her, which made her flinch from the heat radiating off his body.

“Do you think she’ll still love you,” Raina said, “knowing you’ve deliberately killed people, sucked their souls from their bodies?”

Ned clamped a hand around her throat and ripped the gun from her hand, tossing it away. As he began to squeeze, the sight threatened more than ever to take over him. He felt anger. How dare she? Of course Chuck would love him. He killed her father and still she was here.

But that had been an accident. Maybe she wouldn’t love him. Maybe this was the last straw… she just wanted to stop him, to make him give up his powers so SHIELD could lock him away forever. All the more reason to run away from them with the Animus and never look back. He wouldn’t have to face Chuck’s disappointment or a lifetime imprisonment.

“You…” Ned sneered, drawing the words out of his mouth slowly and deliberately. “You caused this. And now you will reap the benefits. I am no scared little human. I am the Animus.” Raina opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came from her lips.

He began to squeeze tighter as the edges of his sight collapsed into the vision of the cosmos, rekindling the burning hunger for power. He wanted to extinguish her, to tear out her soul and destroy her body. He wanted nothing to be left of this woman. He knew what she would do and what she had done. She had threatened Chuck, and now, he wanted to snuff her out.

“Ned!”

Without releasing his hold on Raina, he looked to his left to see Chuck standing there, gun in hand and a look of shock across her face. Her face was flushed from the excitement around her.

“Chuck,” Ned breathed. He looked back to his grip on Raina and instantly let her go. She gasped and coughed, holding her neck and rubbing her skin with her fingertips.

“We’ve got the watches!” Simmons called, breaking the looks between Ned and Chuck. Chuck ran over to the table where Fitz and Simmons crouched, the pocket watches gripped firmly in their hands. For a moment, his spirits fell. Did Chuck have nothing to say to him? She had left his side so quickly, even now when he had control over the Animus. _Maybe Raina was right._

“Come on!” Chuck said, impatiently walking towards the counter. Ned’s heart began to race. This was the moment. He would soon be rid of this power, and he and Chuck could be together… or he would end up in one of SHIELD’s cells. Either way, he decided, it would be better. Better for him and the world. It was as if a spark lit inside his brain: he didn’t care what happened to him, so long as Chuck was out of harm’s way. She could leave him, let him rot in chains, but as long as she was far away from the Animus, Ned would be content. The thought rushed through him like a nectar, softening his anxiety and pushing the sight back more clearly than before.

But there was something he wanted to do for her first.

“Wait!” Ned said. Chuck looked at him curiously, confusion spreading across her face.

“Why? We have to get this thing out of you.”

“I know, but first.”

He walked over to her and quickly grabbed her by the arm, gripping her so tightly that she winced and let out a small cry.

“Ned, what are you doing?” she screamed. Fitz and Simmons attempted to make a move towards him, but he held out a hand to stop them.

“Trust me,” he said, halting the scientists in their tracks. “Just hold on.”

He pressed a hand to Chuck’s chest, concentrating as hard as he could on her heartbeat beneath his fingers. She began to writhe.

“Ned, no, stop!”

“This will only take a second.”

His vision exploded into stars, and he saw the air around him rippling with colors – beautiful, like an aurora or lapping waves on a beach. There were so many, and they stretched all through time. He searched and searched, turning the clock back many days and nights until he saw a silvery vessel on an ocean, with twinkling crystalline stars winking in the sky above it. He saw a man in black grasp a plastic bag in his hands and wrap it around a woman’s face, suffocating her slowly as her feet tip toed on the ground below her, struggling for ground. When she finally slumped forward and her soul left her body, Ned followed it through time as it hung about the world around them, scattered into a million little pieces across the earth. He reached up and plucked it from the air.

“Your life force,” he breathed. In the present, Chuck’s body began to glow, and a bright light emerged from her eyes. Ned’s heart beat faster and faster, and he gritted his teeth in both pain and concentration as his eyes began to brim with liquid fire.

With a cry, he plunged the life force into Chuck’s body just as the borrowed one began to expire. She collapsed in his arms, and he caught her, wrapping his arms around her delicate waist and holding her tightly to his chest. His vision became instantly rooted in the present. Chuck regained her balance but did not pull away from him.

“What did you do?” she asked, blinking her eyes against Ned’s glowing body. He smiled at her.

“I returned your life force to you,” he replied. “You’re no longer living on borrowed energy. I know you said before that you felt guilty about it, like you stole someone’s life, so I thought I’d return yours before I-”

“Oh my god,” Chuck said, seeming to brush off Ned’s words. “Ned!”

She began to run her hands across his golden skin, slowly working her fingers up his shoulders and neck before finally settling on his face. Ned’s heart fluttered nervously and the pain in his head began to subside as he found himself becoming lost in Chuck’s gaze. The look on her face was pure joy, as if nothing in the world mattered anymore and it was just the two of them.

With a surge of confidence, Ned leaned in and kissed her.


	25. Interlude 12

At this very moment, Ned is 28 years, 49 weeks, 6 days, 2 hours, and 37 minutes old and he is kissing his childhood sweetheart, a girl named Chuck. For the first time since Chuck’s resurrection, they do not need to use plastic wrap, and although that was a rather creative strategy, they no longer have any use for it outside of the pie-making business.

As the Pie Maker lost himself in Chuck’s kiss, two scientists were examining the pocket watches, which had formerly belonged to Ned’s father, Edward Edwards, and his companions.

“How are we going to get Ned to put the Animus in these?” asked one, an engineer named Fitz.

“I’m not sure,” said his companion, a biochemist called Simmons. “But I think Ned will know what to do.”

“Let’s just hope he can hold onto himself long enough to do it.”

They turned to face the Pie Maker, but the sight of him and Chuck stopped them in their tracks.

“Bloody hell,” Fitz swore. “Hey! Lover boy! Let’s get that cosmic power back in these watches, yeah?”

The engineer’s voice broke the kiss, causing the Pie Maker and the girl named Chuck to look around in bewilderment.

“Yes,” said the Pie Maker. “Just one more thing. Coulson.” The commanding officer approached them warily, with Agent May close at his side. Ned saw that he was tired, breathing heavily and the arm of his jacket was beginning to dampen. His wound must have soaked through the bandage in all the excitement. The Pie Maker said, “Before I do this, there’s something you need to know.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the special agent, Ward, take a threatening step towards him. His glare was most unfriendly.

“If it’s about the future, I don’t want to know,” Coulson replied.

“But I can help! If only you could see-“

Coulson cut him off with a wave of his hand.

“I’ve seen movies,” he said, smiling. “I know how these things work out, and I’d prefer to take my chances.”

The Pie Maker nodded and turned towards the engineer and the biochemist, dropping Chuck’s hand as he did so.

“Okay,” he said, nodding. “Let’s do this.”


	26. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team helps put the Animus back in its prison, but at what cost?

Ward quietly clamped a pair of handcuffs on Raina’s wrists as Fitzsimmons tried to figure a way for Ned to put the Animus back into the pocket watches.

“You have no idea what you’re supposed to do?” Fitz asked. Ned shook his head.

“No,” he replied. “I couldn’t see anything in the cosmos. And the Phoenix didn’t say anything other than it would make her destroy the world or something.”

“Wait, the Phoenix?” Coulson interrupted. “When did you talk to the Phoenix?”

Ned gave him a look that he hoped wouldn’t be interpreted as too impatient. “It’s a long story. She said she would help, but then she disappeared.”

“Oh, that must have been wonderful!” Simmons said, her face lighting up with scientific curiosity. “Not the disappearing part.” Ned shrugged and looked at Chuck. She showed no sign of having remembered her brief possession, and he thought it best not to bring it up. At least not now. He didn’t want to freak her out.

But looking at her reminded him of all the reasons why he loved her, and it immediately made him feel a longing for her. He felt the hunger begin to arise inside of him. He wanted to take a soul, maybe _her_ soul, to suck it out of someone’s body as he had done with the super soldiers. He wanted to see the light float away so he could devour it. He struggled to hold on to his feelings for Chuck, but the hunger was gaining more and more strength the longer they all waited.

“Please,” Ned said, his voice pained, “we must figure this out soon. If the Animus takes over, it won’t stop. It will want more than just the souls in this room and nothing can stop it.”

The team exchanged looks, unsure of what to do. Had any of them dealt with an entity of this magnitude before? “When you had the sight,” Ward offered, “you must have seen the past. What did other hosts do to rid themselves of it?”

Ned wanted to laugh at Ward’s attempt to seem helpful. _Oh, but I’ve seen you,_ he thought. “They’ve been absorbed,” Ned said, sadly, veiling his attitude towards the agent. “Adam Warlock… he was a host, but he’s one with the Animus now.” He turned to Chuck and twined his fingers in her hair, hoping the movement would root him more strongly in the present.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ned saw May roll her eyes and approach Raina, her strides purposeful and determined. She grasped Raina by the neck, surprising all around her.

“Tell us,” May hissed, her lips inches from Raina’s ear. “Tell us how these watches work.” Raina smiled.

“Kill me,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Ned will take my soul and become the Animus.”

“How about I just squeeze slowly until _I_ take your soul?”

“May,” Coulson interrupted, his voice adopting an air of authority, “let her go.” May obeyed and released their prisoner, leaving her gasping for the second time that day. Simmons shook her head.

“We still need to find out how to extract the Animus,” she said. “Choking one another isn’t going to help.” Ward nodded and slipped a gag on Raina, preventing her from meddling in their next task.

“Yes, but how long until Ned falls back into insanity?” Fitz said. He looked at Ned. “No offense.” Ned nodded and smiled.

“Wait,” Skye piped up, her voice strangely resonant amongst the group. “Let’s put all the cards on the table. What do we know about the Animus? Ned?”

“Uh…” He racked his brain, careful to avoid slipping into the hunger that clawed at his insides. “It can… suck souls out of people’s bodies. It can reveal information… ‘truths,’ if you will. It can access memories, see through time, render people unconscious.” He looked at Ward, who shifted uncomfortably. Should he reveal to the team what he saw, what Ward was and what he would do?

“Yes,” Skye said, interrupting his ethical dilemma, “but remember it also gave you your powers to wake the dead.”

“So?”

“You couldn’t control it.”

“Yeah?”

“You said it’s threatening to take over again.”

“Yeah?”

“I think it’s sentient. It’s just using your body.”

“What, like a parasite?”

“As a host, yes.”

“Oh, that’s brilliant!” Simmons exclaimed. “If we think of it as a parasite, we can treat it as such.”

“I see where you’re going!” Fitz added, his excitement apparent on his face. Ned still found himself confused. He was a cosmic parasitic host now? His life just kept getting stranger.

“We need to weaken its hold on the body,” Simmons explained. “Make it let go. Then we can trap it in the watches again.”

“Seems risky,” Ward added.

“But it’s the only chance we’ve got,” Skye replied. “I say we go for it.”

“Agreed,” Fitz said. The rest of the team nodded.

Ned felt the hunger clawing at his insides again. It felt so strong that he wasn’t sure how the team was going to help him. “But how are we going to weaken its hold on me?” Ned asked, his face beginning to clench in pain. “I’m pretty sure an herbal detox isn’t going to cut it.”

The team exchanged looks, unsure of how to proceed. Ned got the sense that they all knew, but no one wanted to say anything. Their silence hung heavily in the air, encasing them in a dull, thick cloud that seemed to enhance rather than muffle the intensity of their situation. “We kill you,” Simmons said at last, her voice so quiet that they almost missed it. The team fell silent. Coulson shook his head.

“We can’t do that,” he said. Ned felt his spirits lift. _Of course,_ he thought. _Taking life… that turns anything dark. If the Phoenix were to kill me, we could have another cosmic energy threatening the universe._

“Yes, you can,” he asserted, balling his hands into fists. “You have to. Once my body’s dead, the Animus will let go and seek a new host. Then you can trap it in the watches.”

“This is crazy!” Skye exclaimed. “Ned, we’re not killing you! There must be another way.”

Ned looked at Chuck, who was strangely making no protest. What could she be thinking through all this?

“Besides,” Fitz added, distracting Ned from his musings, “we saw soldiers empty, like, full clips into you and they didn’t do anything. How are we supposed to kill you when you’re all jacked up on Animus steroids?”

Ned sighed and ran a hand through his hair. _How indeed?_ “Maybe I can weaken my defenses,” he wondered aloud. “Make my body vulnerable. Then you can do it.” He thought he saw Ward’s fingers twitch towards his gun.

Skye reached out towards him. “You’re insane.” Ned smiled before looking at Chuck. She was still oddly silent. _Say something,_ Ned thought, as if begging her with his thoughts would do anything. But she remained quiet, simply looking at everyone else and nodding, keeping her hand firmly grasped in one of Ned’s. _This isn’t quite the Chuck I know. What’s with her? Is she still the Phoenix somewhere inside?_

“Well,” Coulson said, distracting Ned from his thoughts. “If it’s the only chance we have, we must go for it.” May nodded in agreement but said nothing.

***

Simmons watched as Ned placed a delicate kiss on the top of Chuck’s head, briefly reassuring her of their success before letting go of her hand. Strangely, Chuck hadn’t seemed at all nervous, and Simmons wasn’t sure this was a good sign. Nevertheless, Ned closed his eyes and began to slow his breathing, seeming to go into a deep trance. It reminded her of Donnie’s superstorm, the feeling of calm that rushed over the land as the high-power freezing device shut down and the clouds dissipated. Would Ned be the same?

Slowly, the gold began to melt away from Ned’s skin. Simmons watched intensely as it seemed to just fall away, dripping in long, skinny trails along his arms and off the sides of his face, revealing healthy-looking human skin underneath. It came off in streams, but after a few seconds, it would halt and rush back over him, encasing Ned’s body once more in the impenetrable shell of the Animus.

“Come on, Ned,” Simmons said, trying to sound more encouraging than impatient. Fitz gently placed a hand on her shoulder, as if to lend her some of his own encouraging strength.

The gold then began to push out from Ned’s center, exposing his core and his heart. Simmons thought he looked much like a diagram of a hurricane, the heart being the eye and the gold swirling like a destructive wind all around him. She saw his face was tensed in concentration.

“I can’t do this for long,” Ned announced, his voice strained. The team exchanged looks. they hadn’t thought about what to do once Ned’s barriers were down.

But suddenly, there was a loud _pop_ and Simmons gasped as she watched a bullet lodge itself in Ned’s body, right in the left side of his chest. She whipped her head around and saw that Ward had drawn his gun and was still holding it at arm’s length away.

“What the hell, Ward?” Skye yelled. Ward shrugged.

“There wasn’t much time,” he protested. “Someone has to make the hard choices.” Simmons thought she saw Coulson stiffen, but she became too preoccupied by the sight of Ned starting to crumple to the floor.

But this wasn’t right.

 _Chuck’s not moving,_ Simmons thought. She began to panic.

“Oh my god,” Simmons whispered. “Fitz… how are we going to save him?”

“Like this,” came Chuck’s voice. The team looked at her in surprise as a massive flame immediately engulfed her and the Phoenix rose to life once again. Ned gasped in surprise as her eyes again filled with liquid flame and she plunged a hand into his chest, sending a burning pain throughout his body that was so strong, he could see and perceive nothing but a white hot light.

***

“Chuck, what are you doing?” Skye screamed. The Phoenix gritted her teeth and turned her hand slowly within Ned’s body, ripping a scream from his throat.

“Keeping the Animus from expelling the bullet,” she replied, her voice echoing off the walls robotically. She could see Ned’s heart, how it pumped feebly in the palm of her hand. Just one more squeeze and his soul would escape into the otherworld. “If his soul leaves his body, the Animus will seek a new host.”

She felt Chuck’s blood flowing through her veins with such heat that it intoxicated her. Her love for this man… this man cursed with a childhood of loneliness, growing up with a piece of the Animus inside him for twenty-eight years… she admired Edward Edwards, Jr. and his endurance. What courage it must have taken to sustain his life for so long knowing that his touch held so much potential for power.

Finally, Ned’s heart ceased to beat and the light died from his eyes. The Phoenix felt the girl inside her scream.

“Now,” she said, pulling her hand from his chest. A green mist began to evaporate from his skin, floating up into the air and hovering above the fallen body. “The watches.”

Fitz, Simmons, and May held open the watches, frozen in amazement and unsure of what to do. The Phoenix gestured to them, holding her hands above her head and emitting a glow from her palms, directing the mist into their former prisons. The Animus moved slowly, resisting the heat that came from the light, but it moved.

The Phoenix carefully settled the mist into the pocket watches, which began to glow as the Animus was imprisoned in its separate parts. The hands of the agents shook with the effort, but after much careful guidance, the energy became contained. When the covers finally snapped shut, an audible sigh emitted from the team.

The Phoenix smiled and looked towards Ned’s lifeless body.

“What makes you think he’ll come back?” Skye asked. The Phoenix kneeled and took Ned in her arms.

“Because,” she said, “he loves her.”

She lowered her lips to his and kissed him, reaching into the afterlife and plucking Ned’s essence from the infinite number of energies floating about in the cosmos. The fire around her engulfed the both of them, spreading along Ned’s arms and legs and glowing as brightly as before, causing the agents to shield their eyes with their arms and hands.

***

When the light had subsided, Simmons cautiously lowered her arm and peered over her sleeve, unsure of how to proceed. Chuck sat on the floor, her chest heaving from the effort she had just demonstrated. Was she still the Phoenix?

“What…?” Chuck said, looking around confusedly. Simmons gripped the watch in her hand so tightly that her knuckles turned white, dreading the next few moments.

Chuck looked down and saw a lifeless Ned sprawled out on the floor. His eyes were still closed, as if the Phoenix had done nothing. Tears began to prick the back of Simmons’ eyes, and she instinctively reached out to grab Fitz’s hand.

“No…” Chuck breathed, resting her hands delicately on Ned’s chest. “Ned?”

Immediately, at the sound of his name, Ned’s eyelids began to flutter.

“Ow,” he said. Chuck let out an ecstatic squeal and pounced on him, throwing her arms around his shoulders and resting her cheek on his forehead. Simmons saw Coulson and May nod in satisfaction, and Skye was so excited that she gave Ward a playful punch in the arm. Ned raised himself to a sitting position and took Chuck in his arms, burying his face in her hair.

“You saved me,” he breathed. “Thank you.”

Simmons smiled and turned to Fitz, and, like Chuck, wrapped her arms around him. She exhaled slowly as he returned her embrace, slowly trailing his arms across her back and hugging her tightly. She wanted to hold him like that forever, to tell him how much he meant to her and how she would be lost without him, but she couldn’t find the words. Having her best friend taken from her so suddenly… it made Simmons want to run home to England and take Fitz with her so they could no longer be faced with such dangers. But deep within her, she knew that neither of them could actually go through with it. They would be heroes, and as long as Fitz was around, Simmons felt as if they could do anything.

She wanted so much to tell him that, but instead, all she could muster was a brief whisper. “Don’t you ever die on me again.”

Fitz gently ran his fingers over her back in what seemed like a reassuring gesture. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t.”

***

Ned watched carefully as Coulson snapped the lid closed on a reinforced iron case, locking the three pocket watches inside and setting the new Animus prison on his desk.

Less than five hours had passed since their return to the bus, and Ned had been poked and prodded by the remaining equipment from Simmons’ lab kit. He had given more blood samples than he ever thought he’s give in a lifetime, and the bandages on his arms itched, making him feel like a lab rat with fleas.

“What are you going to do with them?” Ned asked, eyeing the iron case. Coulson sat back in his chair and kept his own eyes fixed on the prison.

“SHIELD will look after it,” he replied. “Put it in the deepest level of the Fridge in an unmarked vault. No granted access.”

“The Fridge?”

“Maximum security facility.”

“Ah.”

Ned clasped and unclasped his hands, unsure of what to say next. He felt wary of handing these watches over to SHIELD, knowing what would happen to them in the future.

“Listen, when I was possessed-“

“Stop,” Coulson cut him off. He leaned forward in his chair, looking at Ned with a cold stare. “I know you saw the future, and I’m telling you now that anything you share with me could be dangerous.”

Ned turned the thought over in his mind. _But what if I could help change all that? Just by telling him what I know about Ward._

“Ned.” Coulson’s voice became more gentle. “I’m serious. If you tell me anything, who is to say the very act of revealing the future couldn’t cause a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Whatever you saw, we will deal with it when the time comes.”

Ned nodded. “I understand.”

“Good.”

“Just one thing.”

Coulson leaned back in his chair again, making it creak with the shift in weight.

“What’s to become of us?” Ned asked, his heart beginning to pump nervously. “What about Chuck?”

“What about her?”

“She can summon the Phoenix.”

Coulson sighed and rubbed his temples with his fingertips. Now, more than before, he felt afraid for Chuck. She was an even bigger target than when she had simply been un-dead.

“Are you going to put her on your index?” Ned ventured. Coulson dropped his hands and looked at him.

“No,” he replied, firmly and confidently. “I’m not.”

Ned’s heart skipped a beat, and for a minute, he thought Coulson was lying to him. He raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

“Why not?”

“Because,” Coulson said, his eyes becoming almost vacant. “No one should get to her. I can’t put her in The Fridge… bars won’t hold her if she should summon the Phoenix again.”

“But don’t you want to keep an eye on her?”

“Of course… unofficially.”

Ned leaned closer to the agent.

“But what if someone comes after her?”

“Do you really think that if someone did that, they would stand a chance against an all-powerful entity that can travel between realities?”

Ned felt a tickle in the pit of his stomach and let out a small laugh. _How silly of me._

“No,” he chuckled. “I guess not.”

“As for you,” Coulson replied, beginning to fiddle with a tablet on his desk. He pulled up records for SHIELD and opened several folders, showing them to Ned as he did so. As they looked at the screen, Ned could see nothing but empty windows, a sea of blackness where it should be peppered with icons and file names.

“I don’t understand,” Ned said, shaking his head. Coulson smiled at him.

“Skye wiped all your records from our database. SHIELD has no record of you.”

Ned smiled back at him. _I’m a free man,_ he thought, a pleasant warmth settling in his body. He could return to Papen County, rebuild his pie shop and start fresh. He could cut SHIELD out of his life and return to normal, enjoying the smell of a baking crust wafting from the oven, the sound of Chuck’s bees buzzing on the rooftop, the softness of Digby’s fur beneath his fingertips. _I can finally pet my own dog._

Without his power, Emerson no longer had any use for him. He could give up crime-fighting and settle in to a life of normalcy. No more chasing down villains with guns, no more breaking and entering, no more being kidnapped or threatened or tortured. He could have the peaceful life he always wanted.

But would Chuck?

She would want to go back to solving mysteries and running around Papen County tracking down bad guys. Would he go with her? Would Emerson even want him now that he was useless?

But the more he thought about it, the more he found that he wasn’t worried. Powers or not, he was still Chuck’s home, and that meant more to him than solving murders. If she wanted to follow Emerson into the depths of the underbelly of Papen County, so be it, and if she wanted him to come along, he would follow her. He would follow her anywhere.

But who else would follow them? His records may have been wiped, but countless people knew about him, even without records. They would know where he lived and what he did. It would be no great effort to find a Pie Maker whose bakery had been bombed in Papen County. But how could he fix it?

“I have one small request before you let us go,” Ned said, an idea suddenly sparking in his mind. Coulson raised an eyebrow.

“What’s that?”

“Make a record of me.”

“Why?”

Ned sighed. “Even with a clean slate, there will be those who know about me and what I can… or could… do.” He ran his hand absentmindedly over the wood of Coulson’s desk. “I don’t want to give up my old life and settle somewhere else. I want to go home. And so does Chuck. She wants to be with her aunts and her friends, and the only way we can do that is if you make a record of me.”

“What shall I say?”

“Write about my powers, but tell SHIELD that I lost them. I don’t care how. Make something up. Just don’t include Chuck.”

“I see.”

“That way, I’ll be useless to anyone who comes looking for resurrection abilities.”

Surprisingly, Coulson smiled at him, taking Ned aback. Wasn’t this a serious matter? Was he going to deny his request?

“Mr. Edwards,” he said, “you’re more of a SHIELD agent than I thought.”

“I’m hardly the fighting type.”

“No, but you have courage.” Coulson set his hands on his desk and looked straight at him, reminding Ned of the way he himself had peered into people’s souls when he had the Animus. “The strength of an agent is not whether or not they can fire a gun or destroy an enemy. It’s the ability to stand up and protect the people who need their help.” He pointed at Ned’s chest. “You may be taking a risk by returning home, but you do so with those closest to you as your priority. _That,_ Mr. Edwards, is something I can respect.”

Ned looked down, feeling his face redden. “Thank you, sir.” He began to stand, intending to leave Coulson’s office and return to Chuck in the lounge.

“Before you go,” Coulson offered, “would you like to know about your father?”

Ned turned around, curiosity displayed plainly on his face.

“I forgot about him.”

“SHIELD has him in custody.”

Ned nodded. _Of course._ But to his great relief, he felt content knowing that he wasn’t dead. 

“What will become of him?” Ned asked warily.

“He’ll be tried for Andrews’ murder,” Coulson said gently. “I’m sorry, I can’t do anything to help him at this point.”

“It’s okay,” Ned replied, a strange calm overcoming him. “He… he should be brought to justice.”

“But…” Coulson slid an index card across his desk to Ned, who picked it up and flipped it over. “Should you ever need the services of our friend, Mr. Morley, this will tell you how to find him.”

Ned smiled and nodded knowingly to Coulson before making his way out of the office.

***

At this very moment, in Papen County, the Pie Maker and a girl named Chuck are standing in front of the ruins of the Pie Hole pie shop. They stepped off the plane, as they intended to do, leaving behind their five newfound friends and one scowling, special-ops agent named Ward who may or may not have been contemplating murder.

But as Ned and Chuck looked at the charred remains of the life that had been so suddenly interrupted, a sense of determination filled their hearts and caused Chuck to take Ned’s hand in hers.

“We can rebuild it,” she said, glowing with confidence. “Insurance will kick in and we can make it just as it was before.”

The Pie Maker smiled and squeezed her hand with increased affection. “I’m not so sure I want to build it as it was before,” he said. The girl named Chuck peered at him with confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“I want to make it better. No more hiding in what feels comfortable or familiar.” He brought a hand up to her face and cupped her cheek. “I built the Pie Hole as a reminder of my past and as a façade to hide who I was… a little boy with the ability to wake the dead. Now, I want to show the world who I am now.”

“And what’s that?”

“A pie maker who doesn’t let the world get him down.”

The girl named Chuck smiled and wrapped her arms about him, closing the space between the Pie Maker and herself.

“A pie maker and an alive-again avenger who both have a place in this world,” she said, “together.”

She drew him in for a long-overdue kiss.


	27. Epilogue

Coulson fiddled with the inputs on the video feed, trying to establish a clear picture of the agent’s face on the other end of the line.

“I want this buried deep,” Coulson said. “Deeper than anything else we have in the Fridge.”

“I understand, sir,” the agent replied, his gloved hands folded confidently in front of his body. Coulson leaned forward so his eyes were highly visible on the screen, intending to communicate the gravity of his command.

“Make sure no one can ever access this box,” he said, his voice hard and cold. “No labels. No codes. No records. I don’t even want Fitz’s mouse hole to be able to cut through this vault. Line it with something it can’t cut.”

“I’m on it, sir.”

“And one last thing. Just as before, if anything happens to this box, I’ll make your life miserable. I am holding you personally responsible for keeping this locked up tight. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.”

Coulson closed the video feed, confident that his orders would be obeyed.

On the other end of the line, in the vaults of the Fridge, the agent smiled and gripped the iron box tightly in his hands.

“Two down,” he said, his skin beginning to melt and stretch. His bones made a sickening cracking sound as his physique began to change shape, molding itself into the underlying form beneath the glamour. The brown hair of the SHIELD agent faded until it became an impossibly blonde color, almost white. He blinked his eyes as they darkened, the skin around them becoming a purplish-black void that highlighted the intense whiteness of his sclera. A deep blue stripe began to appear and drip down from his lower lip to the tip of his chin.

The Collector smiled.

“Four to go.”


End file.
